


intelligent eyes in a hunger-pang frame

by apricots



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Age Changes, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-04-28 19:59:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 45,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5103893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apricots/pseuds/apricots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alexander Hamilton is an early-admissions student at Aaron Burr's university. Aaron Burr is trying to mind his own business. Then the revolution happens.</p><p>[Very very slow-burn Hamilton/Burr, implied Hamilton/Laurens.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. aaron burr, sir

**Author's Note:**

> okay so like.... irl aaron burr is actually a year younger than good ol' a-dot-ham BUT i feel like hamilton comes off strongly as being younger than burr in the musical? uhh so burr is 3 years older than hamilton in this fanfiction. its fine. its fine
> 
> also this is a modern-ish au...... its modern times kinda but also like, theres still just 13 states and the british empire still retains its grasp on all of its colonies and controls the economy and theres still weird pseudo-aristocrats and junk.

The first time they meet, it's in the rain. Aaron Burr is standing outside the library, taking a smoke break; a prospie has split off from his tour group, it looks like, and is looking at him from across the quad. Burr smokes his cigarette and ignores him, rocking up on the balls of his feet and looking at anything besides the kid.

The kid, however, will not be ignored. He's not even done with his cigarette when this teen-something-- a young-something-- is up in his face, vibrating with manic energy and looking very serious. He's scrawny and wearing one of those baggy-sweater-collared-shirt combos that all the freshmen love these days and clutching a stack of notebooks with his long bony fingers. Burr eyes his long unkempt hair with distaste, but says nothing about it.

“You're Aaron Burr,” the kid says. “Sir.”

He gives him his I-Work-For-The-School smile and taps ash off the end of his cigarette. “I could be, sure.”

“Well, sir--” The kid nearly drops his stack of notebooks, then manages to grab them all before they hit the ground. It's an awkward bit of fumbling, and the kid hisses a few swears as he frantically scrambles to get them back in a tidy pile in his arms. “Sorry, sir, I'm, um, nervous, sir-- my name is Alexander Hamilton.”

Hamilton, huh? Not a name he's heard before. Usually these skinny-notebook-boy types have their family name on the buildings, or at least a plaque somewhere. A bench, maybe. He's never seen a Hamilton before, though.

The kid presses his notebooks to his chest and coughs, wrinkling his nose at Burr's cigarette. “Anyway, Mister Burr, sir, I saw you online, and I heard about your accelerated course of study here, and I want to ask you for advice,” he says very quickly. “I want to do what you did. Everyone I've talked to keeps laughing at me like I can't do it, like I'm stupid, but-- I'm not stupid. I can do it. I just need to convince them.”

“You look pretty young,” he says. “You're, what, seventeen?”

Hamilton's expression shifts, his mouth forming a hard stubborn line, his brow creasing. He looks like the kind of person who'll get frown lines way too young. “I'm sixteen, sir, but _if I may be frank,_ sir, I don't think it really matters how old I am, just whether or not I can do the work, which I _can._ I'm not a kid, and I've worked really hard, and everyone keeps looking at me like I'm being ridiculous for going young and expecting to finish early, but I want to move on to grad school as soon as possible because you know your brain loses neuroplasticity as you age and it gets harder to learn things, so _really_ , me being younger is an advantage, technically speaking, because of the stage of development--”

“Slow down,” he says. Hamilton stumbles (it's-- I'm-- uh--) then stops and blinks at him, looking wary. This kid is too much. “I'm sure you can do the work. It's not that hard. But it is a lot. You seem like someone prone to overworking yourself. You're never gonna get an adviser to sign off on this because they're worried you're gonna die or lose your mind.”

The kid's skinny wrists and nervous energy betray him; he can practically see the ambulance lights flashing over his face already. He looks like an overdose, like the distilled essence of the freshmen in the library at three AM washing their Ritalin down with Red Bull.

“But I--” Hamilton protests. He seems like the kind of person who does that a lot.

“ _Listen,_ ” he says firmly. “You get to school and you work as hard as they let you. Maybe you graduate early, maybe you don't. Then, once you've proved you can do it, you can do whatever the hell you want with grad school.”

“They let _you_ graduate early,” The kid's (flimsy) facade slips a bit-- he sounds petulant, and he hugs his notebooks closer to his chest. The rain makes him look more like a drowning alley cat every minute; his bedraggled hair and home-repaired clothes sticking to his scrawny frame. “How did you do it, then?”

“I had to,” he says. “It was my parents' dying wish.”

Something in Hamilton's strange intense alien face gets even more strange and intense and bright. “My parents are dead, too!” he says, more insistent than enthusiastic. “We're the same, see, sir, and if you can do it, sir, I know I can too, if they just give me the chance-- I can be just like you, sir!”

Taking a long drag of his cigarette, Burr takes another, third, long look at Hamilton. He's small, and scrappy. He's not  _nervous,_ but he vibrates with an unsettlingly intense energy. He is restless and argumentative. And his parents are dead; he has something to prove.

Burr knows how that feels.

“Here, I'll buy you a coffee. Let's get out of the rain,” he says. 

Hamilton's eyebrows shoot up; he shoves some hair out of his face and grins. His teeth are crooked, but something about his smile is charming. The honesty, maybe. “Yes! Thank you! No one else will give me the time of day, I really appreciate it, sir--”

“Listen,” He drops his cigarette and grinds it into the pavement with his heel. “You want some advice? Talk less. Smile more.”

Hamilton looks confused. “Huh?”

“You talk too much. No one likes that,” Burr jerks his head towards the sidewalk. “You coming?”

 

* * *

 

 

Of course, the kid gets in. 

Of course, the kid is in the class Burr is TA-ing.

Of course, he recognizes him. Not at first-- he's less soggy, usually, now-- but it's difficult to forget that very particular, “Aaron Burr, sir!” with which he is accosted every. single. time. he sees him. The other kids in the class are picking it up.

It's a freshman class-- Intro to Contemporary Politics-- and it's huge. Hamilton is outstanding, and it irritates Burr to no end because the kid has a huge ego and interrupts everyone and is constantly picking fights and steering the class off-topic. Someone needs to put him in his place, but all the freshmen in the class are confused and scared. Or they are his rowdy friends, who aren't even signed up, they just come to watch the fights and yell  _DAMN!_ and  _OHHHHH SHIT!!_ after everything Hamilton says.

“He's so _aggressive,_ you know?” one white student says in a meeting, and Burr leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers and decides someone really ought to talk to Hamilton.

Hamilton, predictably, is at least ten minutes early to their scheduled meeting at the coffee shop, typing furiously on his shitty laptop. He doesn't look up when Burr walks in, so he takes his time ordering his coffee. Hanging back near the counter, he tucks his hands in the pockets of his jacket and watches Hamilton write. He's fast, and chewing on his already chapped chewed-on lips, staring intently at the computer screen. Ruining his eyes and still in danger of giving himself frown lines. He only stops typing occasionally, when he winces and draws his hands back and rubs his wrists like he's in pain.

This kid is very determined to barrel headfirst into a crisis, Burr thinks.

He gets his coffee and strides over to Hamilton's table. “Alexander,” he says. Hamilton looks up, surprised, and grins.

“Mister Burr, sir!” he says, like he always does. Like he's happy to see him and getting ready to start a fight at the same time. “You're early, sir.”

“So are you,” He sits down and wraps both hands around his coffee. Hamilton looks at him expectantly, but hasn't stopped typing. “Hamilton, we need to talk about your attitude in class.”

“My attitude?” Hamilton looks genuinely confused, and his rapid typing stills for a moment. “I don't know what you mean. I work harder than everyone else there, and I participate more, and my writing is better--”

“You talk too much, and you're making all the white kids nervous.”

Hamilton visibly stiffens, jaw tight, and Burr knows he's in for a fight. “I make them  _nervous?_ ” he asks incredulously. “Mister Burr, you know that they only say that because I'm--”

“I know,” he says. “But you--”

“Stop interrupting me!” Hamilton snaps, slamming his hand on the table with a bang so loud he startles himself. Burr doesn't react, just raises his eyebrows and takes a sip of his coffee. “Sorry. But-- no, I'm not sorry, you're always interrupting me, and I hate it. I don't _care_ if someone doesn't like my attitude. My attitude is fine. And-- and you know what? You're not even that much older than me! Like maybe two years!”

“Three,” he says coolly, and sips his coffee again. Hamilton grinds his teeth.

“Whatever. I'd rather make people nervous than just sit around minding my manners, trying to spare the feelings of people who couldn't possibly care less about me. And, honestly, fuck you for trying to make me shut up just so some assholes could feel more comfortable,” He snaps his laptop shut and stands up abruptly, scowling down at Burr. Burr sips his coffee and gives him his blandest smile. “God, you think you know a person.”

He storms out, and that's the last time they talk for a while. Hamilton still shouts in class all the time; if anything, he gets more confrontational.

 

* * *

 

Something is shifting. Revolution is brewing, some people say. Burr's not so sure about that; it seems a bit extreme. But it is true that the tension seems to keep rising. There are posters plastered all over town that keep getting defaced, ripped down, then replaced with more aggressive ones. After the fourth demonstration in a month (peaceful, they insist), armed police officers hang around street corners, eyeing everyone who passes with hostility and conducting random searches. 

Burr gets stopped once. He's walking from class to his apartment, looking perfectly ordinary; tweed suit jacket, blue scarf, high-collared white shirt, messenger bag slung over his shoulder, hands cupped around his lighter so he can light his cigarette without the wind blowing it out.

“Excuse me, sir.”

He stops-- at first he only really hears the  _sir,_ not the voice, and thinks it's Hamilton, but of course it isn't. It's a police officer. He smiles politely. “Officer. How can I help you?”

“What're you smoking, there, son?”

Really? He stays very still, smile still plastered across his face, and resists the urge to argue. “A cigarette, officer,” he says evenly.

“I'm going to have to ask you to give that to me, and your bag.”

“You want to search my bag? What for?”

Before the cop can answer-- predictably, he thinks-- there's fucking Hamilton, all five-foot-seven of him, shouting the rudest, “Ex- _cuse me_ , officer!” Burr has ever heard.

He says, “Alexander,  _please,_ ” before Alexander even gets started, and Hamilton talks right over him, fishing in his satchel for some paper or another, talking very quickly. He's not here for him, really, he's here to show off. Maybe he's looking to get shot. The police officer clearly isn't sure what to make of him. Burr empathizes deeply, and lights his cigarette.

They end up there on the street corner for way longer than Burr wants to be there for, but eventually the police officer gives up and leaves. This is how Hamilton wins most arguments, Burr thinks. Once the cop is gone, Burr starts walking back towards his apartment building. Unfortunately, Hamilton runs after him.

“Hey! Aaron Burr! Sir! Not even a thank you?”

“That was completely unnecessary. You are so obnoxious,” he says. Hamilton bristles, so Burr relents and adds, “Thank you.”

“These cops are out of control,” Hamilton says. “You know revolution's coming.”

“Hamilton--”

“Call me Alexander, Burr.” Burr glances at him and Hamilton is smiling, cheerful and genuine, like they're friends. It's annoying.

“What are you up to?” he asks. 

Hamilton feigns shock and offense, clutching imaginary pearls, but knocks it off when Burr frowns at him.

“Well, sir, since you _asked,_ sir-- the other TA,” Hamilton fidgets with the cuff of his enormous ratty sweater, looking pointedly not at Burr's face. “He gives me terrible grades on all my papers, and I think it's just because he doesn't agree with me. You know, politically.”

“He gives you bad grades because you write opinionated novels for all your assignments,” Burr says flatly. “I'd give you the same grades.”

Hamilton makes an aggravated noise and combs his hands through his hair. “God, I wish there was a  _war,_ then I could-- you know? I could prove that I'm not just some. Some nerd kid who can't do anything but write. I want to  _fight._ ”

“Fight _who?_ ” Burr asks. 

Hamilton gestures broadly. “The government. Injustice. You know.”

Burr exhales a cloud of cigarette smoke and shakes his head. He knows, but he doesn't think it'd be good for Hamilton's lifespan for anyone to enable him with his idealistic nonsense.

 

* * *

 

Hamilton gives himself carpal tunnel, because of course he does. 

Eight to ten pages, says the assignment, double-spaced, including the bibliography. Hamilton turns in twenty-five pages, single-spaced, a shit-eating grin on his ink-smudged face. He turns it in to Burr, which is technically fine, but they both know he just wants Burr to be impressed.

“This is way too long,” Burr says.

“It's exactly as long as it needed to be,” Hamilton says. 

 


	2. hurricane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The shot heard 'round the world; riots; Burr spends the night at Hamilton's dorm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so........ as you can tell.... im messing around w/ history quite a bit & not really sticking to any kind of actual historical timeline
> 
> i guess u could say im taking LIBERTIES???

Hamilton writes for both student newspapers and the literature journal, and takes more than 20 credits every semester. It's no wonder his wrists never really recover. Burr is busy with his own work, and he doesn't really talk much to Hamilton for a while. (He loses track, doesn't really look up from his books much, but eventually realizes it's been a few years.) Hamilton sends him emails sometimes, though. These emails always look something like this:

_Aaron Burr, sir,_

_I hope you are in good health. I was just wondering if perhaps, if you have the time, you would do me the honor of providing me with your perspective on this essay I wrote._

_That'd be cool. How's school?_

_If you're too busy, I understand._

_A.Ham_

He doesn't mention the revolution, or the protests Burr knows he's going to, or George Washington. Just a greeting, an essay, and  _A-dot-Ham._ It's strange how he pretends to be so formal, but doesn't even sign off his emails properly.  _I hope you are in good health,_ indeed.

Things on campus quickly devolve into sharp opposing binaries on the topic of revolution, which is all anyone talks about any more. Protests grow more frequent, rowdy twenty-somethings screaming at the armed officers patrolling the streets. Rumor has it troops are going to be flown in from England. Proper officers loyal to the king, uncorrupted by the American political nonsense. That's what they say, anyway. Who knows. It sounds fake; things aren't that bad, yet, he thinks, the day before all the shit gets that bad.

It happens basically overnight. 

This kid-- young, black, male-- is shot to death in the middle of the street in Boston.  _THE SHOT HEARD 'ROUND THE WORLD_ is Hamilton's headline on the front page of the student newspaper the next day. The hashtag version is trending all week. 

The riots start in Boston, but they pop up all over the thirteen states pretty damn fast. Virginia gets hit hard; George Washington gets off Twitter and hits the streets, organizing protestors into something more orderly than the mobs up in Boston, but as a result they are massive.

Burr knows it's only a matter of time before the protests in New York, too, turn into violent rioting. He keeps his head down and doesn't talk about the “revolution”-- he's not interested in getting disappeared in the middle of the night, especially since it would accomplish exactly nothing.

Hamilton, on the other hand... Hamilton is delighted, and his wannabe-revolutionary buddies. They stage walkouts. Rallies. Hamilton writes so much for the school newspapers, no one is really convinced that there's a staff working on them besides him. 

He sends the articles to Burr, like he did with his essays. Burr deletes them as thoroughly as he knows how, and prays that the government is not keeping a terribly close eye on Hamilton's emails just yet. Prays that Washington understands that all he's doing is dragging more kids into pointless physical danger, and prays that Washington understands and then stops this nonsense before anyone else gets murdered.

All week, people ask him,  _Burr, what do you think of all this?_ and every time he deflects. Lucky thing Hamilton's holed up in the newspaper office churning out revolutionary propaganda, otherwise he'd never get away with it.

 

* * *

 

There's a riot uptown. 

He finds out from Twitter, because he hasn't gone outside all weekend. Pictures are surfacing of broken windows, of tear gas, of the cops in full riot gear.

It couldn't stay away from New York forever. It was only a matter of time.

Scrolling through the pictures, he can't help but think of Hamilton.

Burr  _knows_ Hamilton will be there, ruining any chance he has at a career. Waving pamphlets and starting fights, probably. He chews on the end of his pen, watching the updates roll in on Twitter. This  _will_ ruin his life, if he doesn't get killed. He could be branded a traitor, a terrorist. And he's so close to finishing his undergrad degree-- if he gets in trouble now, his whole grand plan to get however many degrees it was that he wanted will be ruined. He's only eighteen.  _I want to fight,_ he said.

Burr could do something about it. Maybe. Hamilton only ever listens to him sometimes, and they haven't seen each other in a while, and he could ruin his own prospects if shit gets bad enough-- but the risk, he grudgingly concludes, is worth it. Hamilton really could do great things if he would just stop being such a fucking idiot. He feels a certain sense of responsibility for Hamilton.

He sets his pen down on his desk and sighs before getting up to rush out of the apartment.

Burr pulls his coat on as he runs down the stairs, fumbling with his contact list, hoping he hasn't deleted Hamilton's number yet. He hasn't, but it rings once and then goes to voicemail. He kicks the front door open and scowls and dials again without leaving a voicemail. This time it rings twice before going to voicemail; he is being  _declined._

As he storms down the sidewalk, fuming, he keeps calling Hamilton until he picks up.

“Finally!” he snaps. “You're uptown, aren't you.”

“Aaron Burr, sir,” Hamilton says casually, like he hasn't been ignoring all his other calls. There's shouting in the background, and all manner of other sorts of ruckus; he's definitely there. This suspicion is only further cemented when he hears Mulligan shouting from somewhere near Hamilton's phone.

“BURR!” Burr winces and holds the phone away from his ear. “WHERE YOU AT, MOTHERFUCKER?? THIS IS THE PLACE TO _BE!!_ ”

“I knew it. Hamilton, I am coming over there and I am getting you home if I have to knock you out and _carry_ _you._ ” It comes out as more of a snarl than he intended, and Hamilton actually _laughs._

“You sound _angry!_ Good! Take a stand for something!”

Burr groans and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I'm not-- God, you are  _exhausting--_ I am  _not_ taking a stand or making a statement, I'm coming to make sure you don't ruin your life.”

“Whatever you say, Burr!” Hamilton hangs up on him. Burr shoves his phone into the pocket of his coat and breaks into a run. That dumb motherfucker.

 

* * *

 

It is chaos uptown. The riot turned bad fast; the air is thick with smoke and gas, the flashing lights of sirens, there's people throwing shit at the riot cops, people are getting dragged by the hair into armored trucks. He shoves his way through the crowd, people screaming and chanting, to Hamilton. Hamilton, for his part, is depressingly easy to find; standing on Lafayette's shoulders, throwing rocks.

“Alexander!” he shouts, hands balled into fists, nails digging into his palms. He can't get too upset. He's very aware that there's not just the rioting crowd's eyes on him. The police are looking for anyone who looks violent. If this gets too heated, if he draws unnecessary attention... well, he just won't do that.

Hamilton looks down at him and grins, giving him two thumbs up. He still wears the braces; he never stops writing long enough to let his wrists actually heal, of course, because why would he? “Aaron Burr, sir!” His eyes are bright, his smile is wide, he is the picture of delight. He gestures broadly at the crowd, spreading his arms wide. “Welcome to the revolution!”

“Ohhh, _shit_ , he made it! Burr! Motherfucker!” Hercules Mulligan, whose forehead is bleeding from a nasty-looking bruise/cut combination, punches him in the arm. “Get comfy, throw a rock, this is where the _shit_ is happening!”

“Alexander, get down here, _now,_ ” Burr says, ignoring Mulligan and scowling up at Hamilton. “You idiots are all going to get yourselves shot.”

As he finishes the sentence, a gunshot cracks through the chaos of the shouting crowd. Everyone freezes. Everything stops. Burr can hear his heart in his ears, pounding, anxious. 

The street is silent, just for one moment; the eye of the hurricane. This is the moment that shit gets bad. They are well and truly in the shit. He feels a tug in his chest-- the sudden knowledge that this is where everything starts to change, the kind of idealistic optimism that he sees in Hamilton's eyes, the feeling that this is huge and important and history is happening around him-- and he considers, briefly, staying.

“ _Oh my god, you shot him!_ ” someone screams, and the crowd explodes in outrage, surging forward. 

Burr has only a second to figure out what to do. 

Pick a side. Take a stand.

Not this time.

He kicks the back of one of Lafayette's knees-- “What the fuck!”-- sending both him and, more importantly, Hamilton, tumbling to the ground. Hamilton yelps and hits the pavement hard; before he gets stepped on and trampled, Burr grabs his wrist and starts dragging him away, pushing against the flow of the crowd. He hears Lafayette and Mulligan shouting, but they're indistinct. Their voices are drowned out by the crowd

“Get off me!” Hamilton tries to yank himself away, unsuccessfully. Burr continues walking very quickly away. Not running. Running is too suspicious. His mind races. What's he going to do if they can't get away? Hamilton's struggling slows him down considerably. The crowd does, too. Another gunshot; he flinches, ears ringing, and Hamilton starts hitting his arm, trying to get him to let go. “ _Burr!_ Let go! I can't leave! Hercules and John and--”

Burr scoffs, aggravated, disbelieving. He can't leave, indeed. The sound of screaming, gunshots, glass breaking, is still too close. He can't stop to whirl around and scream sense into Hamilton just yet. He keeps forging onward. He can feel Hamilton trying to dig his heels in, and he tightens his grip and drags him along regardless, forcing him to stumble along after. “What, you  _want_ to get shot?”

“Maybe I do!”

“You're an idiot,” he snaps.

Burr drags him forcibly all the way across town; Hamilton complains and shouts and hits him the whole way, but Burr gets him there nonetheless. By the time he shoves Hamilton into the front hallway of his dorm, Hamilton's hoarse and in tears.

“You're so worried about _me_ getting shot, but what about everyone else there??” Hamilton steps to the side, and Burr plants himself firmly in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. “Laurens, Mulligan, Lafayette-- they could get shot, too, and now I'm not even _there_ to—”

“To _what_? Take a bullet for them?”

Burr doesn't really want to admit that he is also hoarse, and shouting, and angry. He likes to think of himself as more controlled than Hamilton. It pisses him off more that Hamilton's dragging him down to his level, turning this into a ridiculous screaming match.

Hamilton throws his hands in the air, beginning to pace angrily. “I don't know! Maybe! I could  _do_ _something_ , anyway!”

“You can do more here,” Burr says flatly. Hamilton stops and stares at him, now more incredulous than furious. “Stay inside. Write. You're more useful alive than dead. Surely you can see that, with your massive ego.”

“You can't be serious.”

Burr sighs and rubs his eyes. He's so exhausted. Now that they're away from the chaos, the adrenaline coursing through him is just making him feel jittery and drained. “We don't need any more martyrs, Alexander. You can write until your wrists break, make as many posters and pamphlets as you want, just... stay inside.”

There's a long and heavy silence. Hamilton paces more, hands shaking as he fidgets and mutters under his breath to himself, brow furrowed. Burr stays in the doorway and tries to catch his breath, regain his composure. He can't. The gunshots uptown echo in his ears. It could have been someone he knew. Someone Hamilton knew. The guilt would tear him apart.

He smooths his hand over his face and sighs. “Where's your room?”

“Third floor,” Hamilton says, but doesn't stop pacing. “You gonna carry me up there?”

Burr shrugs. “I don't know, Alexander, am I?”

Hamilton looks sour, but stomps towards the stairs anyway, apparently resigned to staying inside for the time being.

His room is cluttered. Stacks of books and loose papers and stapled printouts are everywhere. There's detailed study schedules lining his walls instead of posters, and very few personal effects. It's a bit stark, really. His bed is very tidily made; Burr suspects this is more because Hamilton rarely sleeps in it than because Hamilton is a habitual maker-of-beds. The blanket draped over the back of his desk chair seems to confirm this.

Burr steps gingerly over a line of papers that have been spread out on the floor for some reason, while Hamilton sits down at his desk and opens his laptop in the angriest manner he can muster. “You ought to invest in a filing cabinet or two,” Burr says. 

Hamilton shoots him a venomous look. “I'm in my room, Burr, so  _leave._ ”

“As soon as I do that, you're going to run right back uptown,” Burr says mildly. He's not going to yell at him any more. It's a waste of energy. He got Hamilton back to his room. Now he just needs to keep him here. This he can do without needing to have a huge fight. He sits down with his back pressed against the door, legs stretched out in front of him, and pulls out his phone. It's going to be a long night.

“You can't stay here,” Hamilton says peevishly, turning his chair to face him. “Go away.”

Burr says nothing, just pulls up his email on his phone and pretends to ignore him. Hamilton, in his peripheral vision, scowls and turns sharply back to his computer. “Fine. Do what you want. I don't care.”

After that, Hamilton lapses into sullen silence. He types furiously, nonstop, and seems to have decided to pretend that Burr isn't there at all. Burr tries to stay up to keep an eye on him, but once the adrenaline has made its way out of his system, he is left feeling intensely drained. He falls asleep fast, still sitting against Hamilton's door.

Nightmares about clouds of smoke and gunshots wake him abruptly; it's still dark, is the first thing he notices. And the lights are off, now. A strange combination of smells lingers on his coat; faint enough that it's not terrible, but strong enough that it's still unpleasant.

He sits up straighter, rubs one of his aching shoulders. Hamilton is on the floor a few feet away, hugging his knees to his chest.

Burr slowly, quietly, crawls over to him. Hamilton is trembling, and definitely awake. “Alexander,” Burr says quietly. Hamilton rests his cheek on his knees and looks at him. He looks awful. Thoroughly exhausted. “You should sleep.”

“No, I shouldn't,” Hamilton murmurs, looking away. “I'm fine.”

“You look like shit,” Burr sits next to him, pulls his knees up, too, barely an inch between them. Touching him would be presumptuous, he thinks. Hamilton shrugs. “Go to sleep, Hamilton. You can't save the world if you haven't slept in days.”

“Is that a challenge?” Hamilton smiles feebly. “I'll sleep later. I have to finish something first, I just needed to take a break.”

“What you need to do is have a full eight hours of sleep,” Burr says.

“Burr, I'm fine,” Hamilton says sharply.

“Alright, whatever you say,” he murmurs. He leans his head on his shoulder, and closes his eyes. “I'm going back to sleep.”

Hamilton exhales in an annoyed sort of way.

After a few minutes, Burr starts to drift back to sleep. He thinks he dimly remembers Hamilton leaning against him, his bony limbs digging into his side.

 


	3. farmer refuted

The next time they meet, it's a year later, and it's February.

 

It's a busy fucking year. Hamilton's genius gang survived the night, safe to go on getting themselves in trouble. Burr was relieved-- though if he were perfectly honest he's not sure if it's more because he's glad they're alive or because he was glad Hamilton will be able to forgive him some day.

The movement grows, rapidly, and massively. Burr expected interest to wane, but something keeps them going. George Washington uses his influence to help organize and connect protesters across the thirteen states. Once they figure out how to organize, their presence on Twitter and Facebook becomes useful and coherent. They're still a mess, but Washington is sensible-- Burr rather likes him, really. Sensibility is a rare trait in revolutionaries.

Washington gives the revolution the credibility it desperately needed; it is no longer just rioting college kids, but something serious and real.

Hamilton stops writing for the student newspapers. Rumors spread that administration kicked him out because of all his revolutionary propaganda. It was only a matter of time, really; it was obvious the school wasn't going to put up with his pages-long rants about democracy for long. In his last post on the newspaper's blog, he writes that the university administration threatened to take away his scholarship if he didn't stop publishing. The post gets deleted after a few hours, and the school issues no comment on the matter.

Hamilton, of course, not to be deterred for long, writes instead for the revolution's newspaper-- _The American Gazette._ Lafayette and Laurens drop out of school; Mulligan was never a student, it turns out.

Burr reads everything Hamilton writes, collects the articles in a little folder for reference. He's not sure why, and he thinks about it a lot. He thinks about Hamilton a lot. His writing is incredible, and detailed, and passionate, and Burr finds himself fascinated. In his spare time-- which he doesn't have much of any more, given he's almost finished with law school-- he combs through Hamilton's writing and tries to figure out where he gets his drive from. If he hadn't met him, he would assume he was on drugs; Hamilton produces a preposterously large amount of writing every single day, and he always has. But _why?_ He's passionate about the revolution, he's passionate about everything.

There's also something strange and absorbing in how little Burr knows about him, despite how much Hamilton talks, despite the time they spent together. He's an orphan and an immigrant-- from the Carribean, as he liked to bring up constantly in classroom arguments-- but beyond that, he knows hardly anything about him. It's frustrating. Burr doesn't like not knowing things. Hamilton's writing is so quickly-produced and intense-- and, Burr can tell, barely edited-- that it feels like everything he makes is him laying his soul bare to anyone who'll listen. No matter what he's writing about.

So Burr downloads Hamilton's _Gazette_ pieces to his e-reader and reads them on the bus, on the train, studies them like they're any other text. He keeps it all very carefully organized, and very carefully out of sight. The folders of highlighted annotated bookmarked printouts are a bit embarrassing, really-- someone might get some kind of idea if they saw them. They would definitely think him obsessed, which-- well-- was perfectly fair and reasonably accurate. But more critically, they could think him a spy for the loyalists, or a particularly hardcore revolutionary, and neither of those positions were good places to be.

The _Gazette_ ends up being hugely important when Washington and his fellow organizers push for the Continental Congress. They publish the entire process; Hamilton gets excited, for once, instead of pissed off. Everyone gets very excited about it.

Everyone shifts their focus onto the elections for a while. The violence dies down. The British soldiers ease off, but still hang around the streets with their guns, keeping an eye out for trouble.

The movement pauses to take a breath, to focus all its energy on organizing. Each state will be represented, they say, so that the voices of the people can be heard. Campaign posters flood the streets for months, and Burr's entire newsfeed on every social networking website is nothing but posts about the elections.

Elections are safe. For the first time, Burr-- carefully and slowly-- dips a toe into the temporarily-peaceful water of the revolution. This is something he can do-- something concrete, something useful-- without looking like he has any kind of opinion. He helps to organize information, because he's good at that. He collects the writing from the _Gazette,_ from Washington's Twitter, from meeting transcripts, from PSAs-- he takes everything he can find, and he makes it legible and concise. A clean website, easy to navigate, clearly cited. He's tentatively proud of it; at least, he knows, it will be useful.

He dedicates a little too much time to it, he knows-- he doesn't really have spare time, so he pushes aside his schoolwork and stays up far too late far too often. Once he's finished, he realizes that he definitely cares too much to stay out of it for long; he won't be able to stop himself. At least, he thinks grimly, he picked a relatively safe time to show a little bit of his hand.  
  


**@AaronBurr**

Finally finished. This should be helpful if you're at all confused about the elections.  
#VoteForCongress http://tinyurl.com/34...  
  


His resolve to not be emotionally invested keeps on crumbling; he can't help but feel a warm flush of pride when this pops up in his notifications:  
  


 **@Gwashington** ✔

Confused about voting? This website will answer all your questions.  
Thanks so much for this, @aaronburr. #VoteForCongress http://tinyurl.com/34...  
  


The website gets quite a bit of traffic; people seem to find it useful, which is a nice feeling. Nobody seems to find it suspicious. Loyalists use it, too, since in theory the election is for everybody. (Everyone knows it's not, but they pretend otherwise, and Burr is perfectly happy to go along with the pretense.)

 

* * *

 

 The elections are a success-- although the loyalists insist they're rigged, insist they're unfair, insist they don't need them at all, since of course they don't win much. But people vote, and people get elected, and hardly anyone gets arrested. And just like that, they have a Continental Congress, a group of people elected by the people. Democracy.

And, just like that, they have a Continental Army. Commander-in-chief: who else but General Washington?

And, just like that, Hamilton's dropped out of school and enlisted-- eager as ever for his chance to get shot for the cause. Barrelling headfirst into the revolution, single-minded and desperate to prove himself. Burr feels a deep sense of resignation to the fact that this means Laurens, Mulligan, and Lafayette have enlisted, as well, and he wonders why people are so excited to watch so many promising kids kill themselves for something so uncertain.

Then it's February. Bitter cold, the streets lined with a few inches of muddy grey snow. Vandalized enlistment posters and anti-violent propaganda have replaced the Congressional campaign flyers. The cold has trimmed down the number of people shouting their opinions in the streets, but the more determined ones are still there. They shout and hand out pamphlets to the small crowds they attract. People like the spectacle, he thinks, more than the arguments themselves, but who can really say these days?

Burr walks quickly past the loyalists, shoulders high, coat collar up around his ears, hands shoved into his pockets. He keeps his eyes on the sidewalk ahead of him, doesn't make eye contact with the British soldiers hanging around. There's two, standing on either side of this young man-- here to protect him, probably, which means they're ready to shoot people.

“This Congress is nothing more than a gathering of violent traitors!” the young man shouts, waving a pamphlet in the air. “The establishment of a rebel army makes this abundantly clear! They do not have the interests of the people at heart, but rather the interests of the loud minority who campaign openly for _anarchy!_ ”

Burr is almost past the little crowd, when he hears a familiar sound: “ _Hey!_ ” and he stops.

His heart falls a little bit, because he hopes he's wrong and knows he's not. Hamilton's ready-to-fight voice is unmistakable.

The loyalist pauses, too, probably surprised.

This probably won't end well, and Burr thinks he should probably keep walking, but as he takes another step, Hamilton keeps talking and his feet remain rooted to the spot.

“The Congress wouldn't feel the need to establish an army if we weren't currently living under hostile military occupation,” he says. Burr turns on his heel to look at him; still wearing the same huge ratty sweaters he wore freshman year, with his wrist braces, with his intense scowl. His hair is pulled back into a ponytail, now, since he apparently hasn't had a haircut. He still doesn't have a coat, so he still layers sweaters and scarves in the winter-- it makes him look even scrawnier than he actually is.

The loyalist shoots Hamilton a dirty look, but then continues shouting to the crowd at large-- he raises his voice, even, because he needs to speak over the familiar chorus of booing that Burr couldn't possibly forget if he tried. Laurens, Mulligan, and Lafayette are with Hamilton, rowdy as ever. “The elections were run by rebels, for rebels, and yet they claim to speak for all of us? It's _tyranny!_ Those of us who have not turned to treason are being punished for remaining law-abiding citizens!”

Hamilton steps forward, bristling. “Hey! Don't ignore me!”

Burr can't help it. He can't just stand here and watch Hamilton be this irresponsible. The British soldiers standing on either side of the loyalist are armed, and the way they're looking at him does not bode well. He strides across the street.

“You can't just stand there, shouting this bullshit, and then refuse to engage with me!”

Burr grabs Hamilton's arm and murmurs in his ear, “Hamilton, leave him be.”

Hamilton jumps about a foot in the air and yanks his arm away, stumbling a little bit. He looks startled and offended, at first, but when he looks up at Burr's face, his expression shifts to something more inscrutable. Amusement? Frustration? He's doing something with his eyebrows. “Aaron Burr,” he says.

Of course, the peanut gallery can't help but chime in. Mulligan grins at him and gives him a mocking salute. “The Captain of the Tone Police himself!”

“Here to rescue us all from our terrible fates,” Lafayette sneers.

Laurens pats Hamilton's shoulder, smiles at him, and steps forward to carry on Hamilton's argument. Burr's not sure if that's more or less annoying. He does take note-- not because he's particularly interested in that, in particular, but because of his interest in anything relating to Hamilton-- of the way Laurens' hand lingers, and the warmth in Hamilton's answering smile. He ought to smile more. It takes years off him.

“I'm not here to fight you,” Burr says quietly, uncomfortably aware of the British officers looking at the both of them.

Hamilton raises his eyebrows and his lip curls in disdain-- Burr bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself reacting to how much that stings-- and says, “Then, respectfully, sir? Get the fuck out of my way.”

“ _Ohhhhhh!”_ Lafayette and Mulligan high-five. Hamilton looks smug. They are so exhausting.

Burr holds up his hands and shrugs. “Do what you want, Alexander,” he says. “But, perhaps, consider being less aggressive.”

“ _I_ need to be less aggressive, he says, casting nervous looks at the gun-toting imperial soldiers,” Hamilton says snidely. “ _I'm_ not the _problem,_ Burr.”

“Don't put words in my mouth.”

“They were there already, Burr,” Hamilton plants his hands on his hips. “At least I say what I think. I'd rather be honest than safe. You-- do you even have opinions? Or do you just go along with whatever's popular?”

He forgot the extent to which being around Hamilton tries his patience. He tries to keep his voice down, to keep his face still, but he still snaps, “You're being juvenile.”

“I don't think it's juvenile to feel strongly about things!” Hamilton shoots back. This is accomplishing nothing. Burr shouldn't have even come over here. He turns around and starts walking away, hands shoved in his pockets to hide the fact that they're clenched tightly into fists.

Hamilton calls after him, his voice ringing loud and clear over everything else, cutting through the murmur of the city-- “If you stand for nothing, Burr, what'll you fall for?”


	4. raise a glass

February melts into March. The weather gradually warms.

While Burr lies flat on his back in bed, staring up at the ceiling, a cigarette dangling precariously from his fingers, the world outside continues to revolve. He taps ash off the end of his cigarette, lets it fall on the hardood floor. The apartment smells very strongly of cigarette smoke, but that's fine. His smoke detector is broken anyway. He picks up his phone, stares again at the address-- where to go if one wanted to enlist-- and puts his phone down again.

He's not like Hamilton; he doesn't want to die. He doesn't want to be like that-- constantly charging into every single thing with single-minded intensity.

But now, he thinks... revolution is inevitable. It's only a matter of time before it gets violent again. If he doesn't join the Continental Army, it won't really matter. He'll be shot either way. The British don't care.

Hamilton's going to be so smug. Burr glares at the ceiling. Maybe he just won't ever see him again. Maybe he can just avoid Hamilton for the rest of his life.

His phone buzzes and chimes-- his email alert noise. He picks up his phone, expecting it to be Hamilton for some god damn reason. It's not, of course, and he feels strangely disappointed. Without reading the email, he throws his phone on the ground in disgust and takes an angry drag from his cigarette, exhales smoke at the ceiling.

Lying in bed all day won't do anybody any good. Hamilton could have written a book in the time he spent lying around doing nothing. The thought annoys him into getting up.

 

* * *

 

At first he hesitates about tweeting about it. 

He stands outside the recruitment center for a while, staring at his phone, fighting with himself. Is it tacky to tweet about joining the army? It seems potentially tacky. But it's also a pretty big life-changing thing, so it would be weird not to. That isn't exactly something you could do on the downlow. Eventually he decides, fuck it, in for a penny in for a pound, and he takes a picture of his little stack of papers in his hand and posts it.

**@AaronBurr  
** Jumping on that #Enlistment bandwagon. Very fashionable. Am I one of the “cool kids” now ?

Almost immediately, his phone is awash with notifications. Most obnoxiously, these notifications:

**@lionskincloak  
** @AARONBURR YOOOOOO

**@lionskincloak  
** @AARONBURR @LAURENSJ @LANCELOTTE  
YOOOOO #RAISEAGLASS YALL

**@lancelotte  
** @lionskincloak @laurensj @aaronburr yooooooooooooo #raiseaglass

**@lancelotte  
** @lionskincloak @laurensj @aaronburr dibs on telling ah tho

**@laurensj  
** @lancelotte @lionskincloak @aaronburr he already knows :) #bestfriendalwaysgetsdibs #raiseaglass

Will he never be free from this torment? Why do they know about his Twitter? He rolls his eyes, puts his phone in his pocket, and starts walking home. It occurs dimly to him that it's possible they know about his Twitter for the same reason he keeps tabs on Hamilton, but that seems ridiculous and he dismisses it out of hand.

As he turns the key to his apartment in the lock, his phone rings. He answers without looking to see who it is, pulling his keys out of his pocket. “This is Aaron Burr.”

“Sir!”

Hamilton. Burr fumbles with his keys, almost drops them, and smacks his forehead on his front door in the process. He grits his teeth so he doesn't swear at Hamilton, scowling darkly. He doesn't deal well with surprises. Flustered and glad Hamilton wasn't here in person to see that, he shoves his door open.

“I heard you enlisted!”

“Yeah,” he says. “Less than an hour ago.”

“Laurens texted me! How come I didn't know you had a Twitter?”

“Uhh,” Burr drops his bag on the floor of his living room and toes off his shoes. “Because we don't talk?”

“Fair enough. Anyway, come out for a drink!” Hamilton sounds more cheerful than usual. At least more cheerful than he usually is when he talks to Burr. “I'm going out with Laurens, Mulligan, and Lafayette tonight. It's going to be a good time. You should come with us. We can celebrate!”

He's not sure what he expected, but it definitely wasn't anything quite so... friendly. Burr frowns. This seems suspicious. “Why?” he asks warily.

Hamilton laughs. “What do you mean, _why?_ Because we're friends?”

That catches him off-guard. Bewildered, incredulous, all he can think to say is, “ _Friends?_ ”

There's a long pause.

Hamilton clears this throat.

“Well. I thought we were friends. Are we not friends?”

He sounds genuinely concerned, and maybe a little bit hurt. He thought they were friends? Burr smooths his hand over his head, not really sure what to do with this. They aren't friends. They never were friends. Every time they interact, Hamilton leaves furious. They could be friends, if Hamilton didn't hate him so much.

“Did you forget that you hate me?”

“Oh, pish-posh, don't be ridiculous,” He can practically hear Hamilton waving his hand dismissively. “I don't _hate_ you.”

“Okay,” he says. He's not sure he believes him, but whatever.

“So, are you coming?”

The familiar overpowering urge to observe and analyze and _figure out_ Hamilton tugs at him.

It's not like he's busy. It might be nice to get out of the house.

“Sure. Where are we going?”

“Haven't decided yet. We'll come by your place and leave from there!”

Burr glances around his apartment; at the filing cabinets dedicated to Hamilton's writing, the copies of _The American Gazette_ lying around. He'd really rather not have Hamilton and his terrible friends anywhere near here.

Also-- “You don't know where I live, do you?”

“Of course I do, you've lived in the same place since I met you.”

Hamilton sounds... shifty. Burr sits on the arm of his couch and frowns at the wall. “I never gave you my address.”

“Did you not?” Hamilton is trying too hard to sound innocent. “How mysterious.”

“Hamilton.”

“Anyway, we'll see you later!” Hamilton says quickly, then hangs up.

Of course Hamilton felt no need to specify what he meant by _later._ Burr collapses on his couch and throws his arm over his face with a loud aggravated groan.

 

* * *

 

Rather than calling or texting him, like normal decent people, they let him know that they have arrived by banging on his door and hollering.

“BURR!”

Even though he's not dressed to go out, and still has a cigarette in his mouth, Burr scrambles to open the door before his neighbors can get upset.

“EYYYYYYY!!!” they all cheer in unison, as soon as he opens the door. Mulligan punches him in the shoulder. They're dressed to go out, and Hamilton looks nice. You know, for Hamilton. He's not wearing his wrist braces, and he's put on a blazer over his flannel shirt instead of an enormous sweater. He looks like he's slept at least one entire night in the last week.

“Please stop shouting,” Burr says. “I have neighbors.”

“Oh, boo, it's _Friday!_ ” Lafayette says.

“Most people still sleep on Friday nights, believe it or not,” he says dryly, and takes a step back so they can come in. “Come in, I need to put something a bit more presentable on.”

“I think you look fine,” Laurens says, brushing past him with a crooked smile. Trotting to catch up, Hamilton elbows him and mutters something Burr can't hear, looking at Burr over his shoulder as he walks by. Those eyes.

 

* * *

 

“I'm just saying, it's hardly _fair_ that someone who is as much of a dweeb as Alexander, is as... _y'know,_ ” Mulligan gestures at Hamilton, who is on the other side of the room, chatting up one Miss Angelica Schuyler. “With women.”

“He's charming,” Burr says, sipping his whiskey.

As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Laurens, Lafayette, and Mulligan turn to him somewhat dramatically. He raises his eyebrows at them, daring them to say anything. This turns out to be a mistake.

“Ooohhhh,” they all say, simultaneously.

Lafayette takes a picture of him with his phone very suddenly and without warning. Laurens starts typing on his phone with the hand that's not holding a drink. Mulligan is grinning broadly and downing the rest of his drink.

“I'm going to tell him you said that,” Laurens says, “He'll be thrilled.”

“I'm gonna do it first,” Lafayette says. They jostle each other, grinning, drinks sloshing. Lafayette finishes quicker, holding up his phone triumphantly. “HA!”

Burr glances across the room. Hamilton jumps, and he sees him tell Miss Schuyler to  _ hang on a second _ as he takes out his phone. 

“You are all very dramatic,” he says, keeping his eyes on Hamilton, waiting for his reaction. “He's charismatic. That's not a controversial opinion now, is it?”

“You didn't _say_ charismatic, bro,” Mulligan says. “You said _charming._ ”

They keep ragging on him while he stares at Hamilton across the room. He swipes his thumb across the screen, reads a moment, then grins broadly and looks up. They lock eyes for a second, and Hamilton winks, and Burr chokes on his drink.

Mulligan laughs and claps him on the back as he coughs.

“Anyway, mancrushes aside--”

“Hey, now,” Burr says, but he's coughing, so it's mostly just coughing, and Mulligan continues to talk.

“\--who _is_ that girl he's talking to?”

“Angelica Schuyler,” Laurens says, still on his phone. “Oldest of the Schuyler sisters.”

Burr nods and points at him, then takes another swig of his drink to clear his throat. “That.”

“Schuyler, huh,” Mulligan strokes his chin. “Where's the other two?”

“Over there,” Burr gestures with his glass to the table where Peggy and Eliza-- the younger two-- are sitting by themselves. “They're the quiet ones.”

Eliza, he sees, is leaning her chin on her hand, staring distractedly at Hamilton. He really does have a way with women. With people. He turns back to the bar and throws back the rest of his glass of whiskey. It feels like a kick in the throat.

He needs to stop staring at Hamilton and go talk to a normal human woman with eyes that aren't brown or intense.

 


	5. a fully armed battalion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SILENCE!  
> a message from the king!  
> a message from the king!!!  
> a message from the king!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The king's voice rings out over the assembled crowd, broadcast live from London. There's not much else to watch any more; every channel that Britain hasn't censored is now dedicated almost exclusively to anti-revolutionary propaganda.

“It is Our deepest regret that the situation has escalated to this point. But the dark influence of revolt has gone unchecked long enough. The traitors destroy their own communities. Their Congress and their army will stop at nothing until they have turned the whole of the colonies to anarchy and ruin. This treason is rotting the thirteen states, and the decay will only continue to spread if we-- the people of the British Empire-- do not intervene. We must cut out the infection. It may be painful, and it may take time, but Britain will not stand by and watch as our American brothers and sisters are slaughtered by their own countrymen.

We have hesitated, thus far. We wished to act only when it became absolutely necessary. It is necessary now. These latest actions by the so-called Continental Army-- a terrorist organization, let us not mince words-- constitute a declaration of war. We can no longer stand by and do nothing as these terrorists burn Our flag and attack Our people.

If the terrorists surrender, then there will be peace, and We will be merciful. If they do not, then they will be met with the full force of Our imperial strength, and We will not stop until every last one of them has been hunted down and killed. This may seem extreme. But We assure you that if We do not stop them, these traitors will do the same to the loyal citizens of the Empire. With swift and decisive action, We hope to bring this conflict to an end soon, and restore balance and peace to the American people.”

Troops, of course, have already landed in the states when the speech is broadcast.

They have tanks.

Their goal is no longer crowd control-- they are here to fight a war, and their numbers and training are overwhelming. Britain seizes Boston, drives the Continental Army there out into the countryside, leaving dead bodies lying in the streets.

Britain issues a _most wanted, dead or alive_ list; it plays on a loop on some channels, twenty-four hours a day. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, the editor of Hamilton's newspaper, so on and so forth. Hamilton isn't on it, yet. But it's only a matter of time. Now that it exists, Hamilton is probably going to actively try to get put on it. Because he's an idiot.

They publicly execute the editor for the _American Gazette_ a week later. They broadcast it live, with no sound.

Burr watches-- everyone watches-- as they drag him by the hair into the middle of the street. He's shouting something, but the broadcast has no sound, so they can't tell what. The British officers are wearing their bright red high-collared jackets, clean and tailored and stiff. There's two of them. Both white. Of course.

One holds his hair, keeping his face up and facing the camera. The other stands to the side and unfolds a piece of paper. The audio cuts in so they can hear him read out his crimes. Treason. Conspiracy. The list is pretty long.

The soldiers are calm. The one reading the list has a crisp, businesslike tone. He reads the list, then, just as calm, he finishes with, “All these crimes being considered, in the name of his Majesty, King George, you have been sentenced to death.”

The editor opens his mouth to speak and the sound goes out again. Whatever it is he said, the soldiers do not respond.

The one with the list folds the paper tidily and tucks it back into his jacket. “May God have mercy on your soul.”

He draws his gun. Extends his arm, presses the barrel against the man's temple.

Burr closes his eyes.

The gunshot echoes on the street in Boston.

 

* * *

 

“There is a time and a place for civil debate about governmental structure. There is a time and a place to discuss transfers of power. Independence is not something that can be granted overnight. It is a complex issue, and it requires time and careful planning. These extremists do not want _independence._ They do not understand politics. They do not understand government. They are campaigning to spread chaos and to undermine our empire. It saddens us to know that extremists have poisoned the conversation. Until the extremist element has been eliminated, the American states must be protected from themselves. Until every inch of this revolution has been stamped out, American independence is impossible.”

 

* * *

 

The first time they put a gun in his hand, Burr feels a terrible twinge of panic. “You never learned to shoot?” someone asks him. He laughs it off, pretends he isn't bothered, and doesn't make excuses. (If he wasn't an orphan, he would know already. Everyone else learned from their fathers.) He sets his pride aside and learns.

There's a lot of women in the same boat as him; most particularly, one Miss Angelica Schuyler, with whom he ends up spending quite a bit of time. He doesn't recognize her at first. Her waist-length braids are piled into a bun, and she wears button-downs and jeans. She looks almost ordinary; she could pass as someone not absurdly wealthy, except for her expensive perfume.

She's next to him at the shooting range. He is doing poorly; he shakes every time he picks up a gun, his heart jumping into his throat. She is, apparently, completely fine. Fires at the target, steady and calm. After, she pulls off her sound-blocking headphones and grins at her target, one hand on her hip. “Nice going, Angelica,” she says to herself.

She has not missed once. He looks at his own target and grimaces. Being this bad at something is new to him, and it is deeply frustrating. He clicks his tongue and frowns at his gun as he reloads.

“Aaron Burr can't shoot, huh,” she says. He stills. She knows his name. “That's appropriate, isn't it?”

“Is it?” He sets his gun down and smiles politely. She grins back, eyes bright and brown and too familiar, and his breath catches in his throat for a second. No wonder she and Hamilton got along so well that time; they're just alike. She has the same peculiar intensity that makes eye contact feel like looking directly into the sun.

“Lawyers aren't known for being real straight shooters.”

She laughs at her own joke and that, too, reminds him uncomfortably of Hamilton.

He raises his eyebrows at her. “Miss Schuyler, you're very rude, considering we've never even been introduced.”

“Well, you know who I am already, and I know who you are,” She tilts her head to the side, like a curious bird. This is also something Hamilton does. It's eerie. “So, introductions would be a bit redundant.”

“Fair enough,” Burr crosses his arms over his chest. “Then I'd like to know how you know who I am.”

“You're a friend of Hamilton's,” she says, like that explains everything.

He fidgets with the cuffs of his sleeves and keeps smiling as politely as he can. Hamilton has mentioned him. At least once, probably. What has he said about him? He needs to know, now. How would Alexander describe him? More pressingly, how can he ask her about it politely and without seeming invested?

“Friend is a strong word,” he says.

“A strong word, Burr, or just the wrong one?” Angelica asks, giving him a strange piercing look. He feels painfully transparent.

He can't really easily deflect the question, and there's no way to change the subject without giving her an answer that he doesn't want her to have. If he avoids the question, she will think _something._

To double down on his polite smile and feign ignorance feels stupid, with her looking at him like she can see through him.

He shrugs and looks away, and she hums thoughtfully. “That's what I thought.”

“I didn't say anything.”

“You didn't have to.”

Angelica annoys him. She looks at him like she knows everything about him, and it makes him worry that she does. Naturally it turns out they have to live across from each other in the terrible makeshift barracks they're staying in. Angelica likes to put her feet on her desk and have loud conversations with her sisters with the door open.

“You _can't_ cut your hair!”

“I can do whatever I want to my hair, Eliza.”

“But your hair is so beautiful! It's so _long!_ It--”

“It being long is the problem.”

“ _Alexander_ has long hair.”

Ah, there-- Burr looks across the hall over the top of his laptop screen at the sound of Hamilton's name. He can see right into Angelica's room from where he sits, if they both have their doors open. She and Eliza talk about Hamilton a lot. They also talk about Eliza's friends, and their father, and other things like that, but Burr doesn't listen to those conversations, because they are very boring.

“Yes,” Angelica says patiently. “But his hair is much shorter than mine.”

“So? Long is long! If it's fine for him, it's fine for you, surely!”

Angelica sighs. “Let's not keep fighting about my hair, dearest,” she says. “Tell me about how things are with Alexander, that'll cheer you up.”

“Oh, alright. He's still writing me every day! Proper long letters, too, it's so lovely-- Angelica, he is just a _dream._ ”

“I know,” Angelica says warmly. She is warm with Eliza and Peggy; not with anyone else. Certainly not Burr. “You've told me several times. He's a very old-fashioned sort of boyfriend, isn't he?”

“Angelica, he's not my _boyfriend_ , not really.”

Burr looks back at his laptop and zones out for the rest of the conversation. It's the same conversation every other day. They're not _really_ dating, but they see each other all the time and talk constantly, but they haven't _talked_ about it, blah blah blah.

 

* * *

 

“It is with deepest regret that We must inform you that the American states refuse all Our attempts at negotiation. Thus, We have been forced into a position where We have no choice but to continue intervening with military force. We ask that the international community allow Us to settle this matter without interference. It is an issue internal to the British Empire, and We feel that outside influence would only create more chaos in an already fraught situation.

We know that there is a high volume of propaganda circulating on social media, and We want to clarify that officers of Our imperial army would never resort to violence without provocation. Any claim to the contrary is insulting to the dedicated men and women who work tirelessly to protect the safety of Our great empire. Our soldiers are engaged in violent conflict because the extremists have initiated violent conflicts, and We assure you that every effort is being made on Our part to ensure minimal civilian casualties.”

 

* * *

 

Britain imposes a blackout. No cellphones, no internet. They have to be protected from the propaganda, the king says.

Organization collapses.

They can't talk to each other any more; they all grew completely dependent on their phones, and now they don't know what to do. They shut everything down in the middle of a massive firefight in New York City, and the Continental Army is forced to retreat, ceding huge chunks of the city because they can't figure out where anyone is. George Washington, they say, panics.

People are dying, but who knows where and how many? Panic sweeps through the army, and they have another wave of desertions.

They are forced to turn to older forms of technology; radio, paper, smoke signals. They can manage, but it will take time. It takes time to establish lines of communication, to figure out how best to keep people safe. It takes time to set up radios. It takes time.

They don't have time.

Every day they can't communicate, they are dying.

They need radios and ear pieces. Burr volunteers to raid a British-held police station; he thinks he can turn it into something other than a suicide mission. If they're careful, if they do it right, they could get out with what they need. 

There's no one to warn them that the British beefed up security. Soldiers are waiting for them on the roof. Burr sees them the second before they shoot, and shoves William out of the way. There's no time to get himself out of the line of fire, too, and gets hit. Right between the ribs.

“He's hit!”

The pain is astonishing. He staggers, can't see anything-- someone grabs him, yanks him behind an abandoned car. Everyone starts yelling at him, while they're still getting shot at.

“Oh fuck, oh shit, oh my god-- Burr, what the _fuck,_ oh my god--”

He presses his hand against the wound, feels blood. He takes a shuddering breath and his exhale is a hiss of expletives because moving his chest is truly awful. His ears are ringing, and he can't really see anything. The ground feels like it's spinning.

But he can't die here.

If it were Hamilton-- Hamilton would power through it.

He breathes, even though the searing agony that shoots through his chest makes him want to die, and blinks until he can see. Everyone is staring at him, eyes wide and terrified. 

“He's still alive but-- but we have to-- we have to go back, get you some help--”

“Everyone, shut the fuck up,” he croaks.

“You're _hit_ ,” William says. Burr scowls at him.

“Yes, I noticed. You're welcome,” Talking is really not good for him, he thinks. He does it anyway. His voice is a hoarse whisper-- anything louder seems unwise and unthinkably painful. “Everyone needs to shut up.”

He sits up, keeping his hand pressed hard against the gunshot wound. Moving is terrible. He can taste blood in his mouth. “Gunshot wounds have a-- what, seventy percent survival rate?”

“Burr!”

“Shut up,” he says again. The pain is a lot, but he can suck it up. It's not that bad. At least it's not in his legs. Shakily, he reaches for his gun with one hand, keeping the other pressed against his chest. There's a lot of blood on his hand. “We're doing this. We need those radios.”

They protest. He gets up on his knees, takes his gun in both hands, and takes a shot at one of the British soldiers on the roof. The recoil send more sharp pain shooting through his chest and arms, but he grinds his teeth and keeps the pained noise muffled.

“If we do this quickly, and you listen to me,” he says, “Maybe I won't die.”

They do it quickly. They listen to him. He passes out at some point; when he wakes up, the wound is sewn up and they have short-range radios. 

He tries very hard to believe that they aren't trying to one-up him when Hamilton, Laurens, Lafayette, and Mulligan take an entire radio broadcast studio. But it really feels like they're trying to one-up him.

A week later, it still hurts, but the pain kind of fades when George Washington sends for him. “Maybe he's going to give you a medal,” Angelica says.

“I don't think we have medals yet,” Burr says.

The General is a large man; not quite the ten foot tall giant some people insist he is, but still large enough that he has a dramatic presence. He shakes Burr's hand and claps him on the shoulder as he says, “Thank you for your service, Mister Burr.” It feels pretty good.

“Of course, your Excellency,” he says. It occurs to him that this is his chance-- he has the General's ear. He could make a real difference.

As he opens his mouth to speak, the door opens. “Sir, you asked to see me?”

Hamilton. Burr turns, and there he is, standing in the doorway. Small and tired as ever. Wearing his wrist braces again.

“Ah, yes, come in, Hamilton-- have you met--”

“Aaron Burr. Yes, sir,” Hamilton strides over, grinning broadly. It looks like he's going in for a hug, so Burr sticks out his hand to preemptively make it a handshake instead. Unperturbed-- maybe he read that wrong and it was just a handshake?-- Hamilton clasps his hand, beaming at him. His eyes are just as awful and bright and intense as ever. Burr can't breathe with him looking at him like that. “You look good in uniform, Burr, it suits you.”

Is he being teased? He can't tell. It's difficult to think straight when Hamilton's eyes are on him like they are. “Thanks.”

“How have you been?”

Burr smiles wryly. “Well, I got shot.”

Hamilton's eyes go very wide. “Shot!” Apparently he hadn't heard. He supposes that means he can't have done the radio thing solely out of spite. In retrospect, that was always obviously not the case, but still. 

“He'd get a medal, if we had medals to give out,” Washington says cheerily. 

Hamilton looks impressed.

Burr's heart skips a beat. Alexander Hamilton is impressed. By him.

“It was good to meet you, Mister Burr,” Washington says. “Hamilton, I need to speak with you.”

“I'll take my leave, then, sir,” Burr salutes him. “Thank you for your time.”

Hamilton catches his arm as he turns to go. “Burr, we should catch up, get a drink,” he says.

“I think we're both a bit busy at the moment,” Burr says.

“Well-- yes, you're right,” Hamilton bites his lip and furrows his brow. “I'll write you, then.”

“I look forward to it.”

He hesitates before he leaves. Just for a moment. To take in the feeling of Hamilton looking at him, impressed and earnest and happy to see him, of Washington smiling at him, of feeling like he's made a real difference. 

When the door clicks shut behind him, he feels a very sudden rush of jealousy. The pride he felt is soured, turns into bitterness. No matter what he does, he'll never be the one on the other side of that door. Hamilton always wins.

He presses his back against the wall and closes his eyes. Hamilton was impressed. He won-- he's the one Washington wants to speak to in private-- but he was impressed. Is it spite that makes him cling to the image of Hamilton looking at him like that? His ever-burning desire to be acknowledged as better than everyone else?

_ What do you want, Burr? _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhh omg.... thank you everyone for your lovely comments...!!! it makes me so happy that people are enjoying this..... and everyones been so kind... im gonna get a big head haha....... for real though im so grateful for yall taking the time to say such nice things it cheers me up so much ;;;;;;  
> i hope yall continue to like it............. and i dont disappoint........... ;;;;;;;;;;;
> 
> ps also look at this super good fanart my roommate did!!!  
> http://droosy.tumblr.com/post/132179242624/hamilton-is-really-good-sandstorm-fife   
> http://hamiltub.tumblr.com/post/132647543011/this-may-or-may-not-be-fanart-for-my-roommates


	6. relentless

The jealousy and bitterness burns in his throat. It twists his stomach into knots. It gives him jitters. He paces, so that he doesn't shake too much, and he smokes to stop himself fidgeting. Fidgeting is a bad habit. (“So is smoking,” Angelica says. He waves her away, cigarette between his fingers, and she wrinkles her nose at him.)

He tries to ease the jealousy, reminds himself of Hamilton's face; his wide eyes, his surprised smile, the way he looked at him like he looked _up_ to him. He tries to summon that feeling he had when Hamilton looked at him that way, that warmth and elation and pride. But it doesn't help, because remembering that face, the warmth of his hands, his eyes--

His _eyes--_

That thought, that feeling, is worse than the jealousy. It isn't just elation and pride, it's something more powerful and more frightening, and he can't-- won't-- think about that. The jealousy, he can work with; so he leans into it, grabs hold of the angry bitter burn and uses it as fuel. Jealousy is useful. Jealousy gives him something to work towards, something to strive for. The other thing is not useful. The other thing feels like getting shot in the chest all over again. It feels like dying.

So he takes the jealousy, the pride, the bitterness, instead. He grits his teeth and works harder, like he has his entire life. He is not Hamilton. He cannot be Hamilton. No one can be Hamilton-- sometimes he wonders if Hamilton can even be Hamilton. But he can be better than Hamilton. He has things that Hamilton doesn't; self-control, for one thing. Patience, for another.

 

* * *

 

The first letter from Hamilton arrives as the temperature starts to climb. It's thick. The envelope has no stamp, of course, because they can't use the actual mail service any more; just his name, in Hamilton's handwriting.

He hunches over his desk, holding his cigarette between his teeth and his head in his hands. He has not opened the letter yet.

Angelica knocks on the side of his doorway, leans her head in. A faint wisp of her perfume mixes strangely with the smell of his cigarette. “Burr, stop smoking in here,” she says.

He glances up at her and considers, for a moment, continuing to smoke out of spite. That would be extremely rude. He grinds out his cigarette in his crowded ashtray and returns to staring at the envelope, trying to shake off the apprehension that is making it difficult to breathe.

“Oh, you've gotten a letter. I thought you didn't have any family,” she says, walking into his room and peering over his shoulder. He slams his hand on top of the addressed envelope much too late, cheeks burning. Why is he embarrassed? There's nothing to be embarrassed about. His hand stays firmly on top of the letter nonetheless.

“It's private,” he says.

She looks at his hand on the envelope, then at him, and once again he feels like she's looking right through him. There's a strange pause, and the way she's looking at him he can tell she can recognize Hamilton's handwriting. Then she just shrugs, and says, “Alright. Whatever.”

Then she's gone, and Burr is left feeling, as he usually does when they talk, uncomfortably _known._

He opens the envelope, and takes out several sheets of paper. Hamilton's handwriting is compact, and definitely legible but clearly written in a rush. He's scribbled out bits here and there, and the spacing on the page is strange, and some of his words have strange little loops-- it's unclear if they're intentional flourishes or mistakes.

_Aaron Burr, Sir -_

_As promised, a letter for you! I know I said we should catch up, but now that I sit down to write this it occurs to me that I'm not sure we ever were caught up. Nor do I know what you need to be caught up on. Well! I suppose I shall start with the most exciting news first-- I hope you haven't heard already, because I always prefer to give people this sort of news myself, just a peculiarity of mine-- General Washington has asked me to work closely with him as a writer! He says that I am “very gifted” and that it would be an “honor” to work with me. Imagine that! General Washington, it seems, has terrible handwriting, and isn't very good with long-form writing. He's asked me to write speeches for him! Isn't that something? I'm terribly excited and Laurens has gotten quite thoroughly sick of listening to me talk about it._

_When was it that we last saw each other? February, I suppose? Does that really count? It was such a brief interaction, I'm not sure it does. It occurs to me now that I didn't ask any questions of you that time, or the time before it! Burr, how have you managed to remain such an enigma for so long? I like to think that I know you quite well, in some senses. I have a grasp of your character that I feel quite confident in. But then I remember that I don't know much about you! I simply completely neglected to ask, which makes me feel terribly foolish. There are simply too many things I do not know about you for me to draft a list of questions, so here is a general plea to you: tell me about yourself!_

_I must say that being in the thick of the fighting is exactly as thrilling as I anticipated it being..._

On and on and on. Each piece of paper is covered on both sides with writing. What a ridiculous person. Out of curiosity, Burr turns over the last page, to see how Hamilton signed it. He tells himself he wants to see Hamilton's signature; in actuality, he's more interested in the bit before it. Sincerely? From? He's half-expecting just  _A.Ham,_ because that's what he did in college with his emails. Perhaps something friendly, like “regards.”

Thus he is not at all prepared for the heart attack that is:

_Yours affectionately,_

_Alexander Hamilton._

Burr puts the letter down on his desk and presses his hands over his eyes, leaning back in his chair. Pain tugs at his chest and heat rushes to his cheeks and a little bit of hope nags at him and he ignores it, ignores it, ignores it.

_Yours affectionately?_

What is that? Who says that? Is this something that Hamilton-- undersocialized, orphaned, overenthusiastic-- says to his friends? Where on earth did Hamilton grow up that he was never taught how to sign off letters like a normal person?

Burr slides his hands down his face and gingerly picks up the letter. There it is, still: yours affectionately. 

He grits his teeth and decides he has to ignore it. Addressing it brings too much attention to it. It means nothing to Hamilton, he's sure. Hamilton's an orphan, socially inexperienced, overenthusiastic in all things; his ways of interacting with other people are not always going to make sense. He's just being friendly.

 

* * *

 

He gets promoted, and moved away from New York. Hamilton goes wherever General Washington goes. Washington gives weekly speeches over the radio-- to boost morale, to help them feel like they're all still connected even though the blackout persists. Burr isn't usually one for inspirational speeches, but these ones were written by Hamilton-- he can hear it, despite the care Hamilton takes to write in Washington's voice. 

They keep communicating via letter, even as the war intensifies. As he keeps getting promoted, Burr gets busier, and he responses grow more infrequent, but Hamilton's pace never slows down. He writes, it seems, constantly.

_I want to fight,_ Hamilton writes.  _I sit here and go through all these reports, write all these condolence letters to people's families... it makes me wish I could do something useful._

Burr writes back:  _Be sensible, Alexander._

He spends a lot of time-- more time than he'd like-- managing the infighting among the younger recruits. They fight constantly. Burr at times has to step in and physically separate people coming to blows over the most ridiculous nonsense. He's glad that Hamilton is working so closely with General Washington; he's absolutely sure that if he weren't, he would be constantly getting into fights as well.

The British don't give up. Months pass; Burr watches hundreds of people die around him. It exhausts him. Not so much that he can't go on, but it exhausts him. The winter is brutal-- some people get frostbite, and they don't have nearly enough doctors. Burr doesn't know what the British have been telling the rest of the world, but they get very little foreign assistance from overseas.

British embargoes only get worse. They can manage, but it's a struggle. General Washington makes feeding civilians the priority, so they fight hungry half the time. 

It doesn't exhaust Hamilton. Hamilton seems to thrive under pressure. His letters get longer, even as the circumstances of the war force Washington to put him on the battlefield in addition to having him do all the writing he does.

 

* * *

 

_General Washington still refuses to give me a command position, even though he knows I could do it well. You have to agree, I'm at least a better choice than Charles Lee. Charles Lee, of all people!! You know he just spent almost a year being held prisoner, right? We got him back from the British like a month ago, he'd been gone since last summer. The man is absolutely useless. Probably a traitor, too. How else did he survive that long in British custody? If he wasn't a turncoat, they would've shot him. The General won't hear it, of course. Just good luck, he says. He really said that._

_Lee is heading your way, to take command at Monmouth. The General will be coming after him shortly. Make sure you don't die before I get to see you again. Laurens and Lafayette are with us, as well. Maybe we can all get a drink._

_I've missed you._

_Yours,_

_Alexander H._

 


	7. monmouth

“Charles Lee,” the man says, sticking out his hand. He's about what Burr expected; not at all impressive, and kind of shifty-looking.

Burr shakes his hand, smiling warmly. Lee has a weak handshake. “Aaron Burr, sir,” he says. “Good to meet you.”

“So you're the man in charge here?”

Burr pretends he doesn't hear the note of surprise in his voice, and ignores the way Lee's eyes flick over him with his eyebrows slightly raised. “Yes, sir,” he says.

 

* * *

 

He hates to admit that Hamilton is absolutely right, even to himself.

Here is the plan: The British are headed north for New York City. They think Washington is there, helping in an attempt to take it back. The Continental Army swoops around behind them and takes them by surprise; then they split, and Lee goes south to Philadelphia while Washington goes north to New York City.

For some god damn reason Lee puts them square in the path of the British army. The British don't seem surprised to see them. “Oh, god-- there's so many of them!” is the last coherent thing he hears on his earpiece before chaos erupts.

As a child, Burr grew up surrounded by religion. The particularly devout sort-- fire and brimstone, original sin, martyrs, lengthy descriptions of various interpretations of Hell and divine punishment. Hell, as a concept, was central to his early exposure to religion. He settled very early in life on what he thought Hell would be like. He could never put it into words, and when pressed it was difficult to say, exactly, what it was.

Now he'll never have that problem again.

Through his earpiece, he hears people screaming as they die, the sound buzzing, interspersed with piercing static. It is over a hundred degrees out, not a cloud in the sky, and they have no shade and barely enough water. The death toll is astonishing, just within the first few hours; they are panicked, caught off guard, and Lee provides them with basically no instructions.

Burr moves on instinct-- he abandons entirely any thoughts of saving anyone else, of trying to salvage the mess, of trying to do anything besides stay alive. The screaming and smoke and heat overwhelm the senses. There's only one coherent thought he has going through his head, and it's written in Alexander Hamilton's handwriting.

_Make sure you don't die before I get to see you again._

Angelica shouting in his ear is what brings him back into his body, out of his delirious panicked trance.

“Burr, _can you hear me?_ For God's sake, if you're dead--”

“I hear you,” he says hoarsely, glancing around. Where the hell did he end up? Behind a stone garden wall somewhere. “I'm alive. I think. It feels like I may actually have died and gone to hell.”

Angelica exhales loudly, relieved. “Oh, thank God.”

“I don't think he's got much to do with it, Schuyler, but I appreciate the sentiment nonetheless.”

“Lee called for a retreat.”

He pauses, hoping perhaps for more details. None are forthcoming. “Did he, by any chance, say _where_ we are supposed to retreat to?”

“No,” she says. “Washington's almost here, too.”

“Well,” he says. He tries to get up, and as soon as his head gets above the top of the wall he's almost shot-- bullets shoot past his head, very narrowly missing him, and he jerks back down. “I'm pinned down.”

“Yeah, so is literally everyone,” Angelica mutters. “Just-- try to get out of there, okay? I need to keep trying to get in contact with people.”

“How do you propose I do that?” he asks, but she's gone already.

He's not sure how long he's stuck there. It's all one big blur of heat and gunfire and sitting pressed up against this one shitty wall. Then, one moment he's pinned down, trying to figure out how the hell he's going to get out of here, and the next, someone slides up to the wall on his left and another one drops to the ground, smacking into his side.

“Aaron Burr!” Hamilton says breathlessly, grinning at him, pressed very close against his side. Normally, he'd be annoyed, but as it is it helps reassure him that he's not hallucinating from the heat. “We found you!”

On his other side, Laurens lifts his chin at him in a half-nod. “What up.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head. His vision is starting to blur. They both seem very... indistinct. “What are you two doing here?” he says. His voice is very hoarse.

“Looking for you!” Hamilton's grin is outrageously wide. He glances over the top of the wall, then looks back at Burr. “I'm glad you're alive.”

“But for the grace of God,” he says. Then he squints. “But really, what are you doing here?”

“But really, looking for you,” Laurens says. “Alexander insisted. Hounded the General until he let us go find you. He's been worried sick all day.”

Hamilton shoots Laurens a look over Burr's shoulder. “It wasn't that dramatic.”

“Seemed pretty dramatic to me,” Laurens leans weirdly close to Burr's ear and stage whispers, “He was _frantic._ ”

“That's an exaggeration!” Hamilton protests. “Burr, he's exaggerating. Don't listen to him. He's a madman.”

Laurens leans around Burr so he can give Hamilton the finger. Hamilton scowls. It's all very strange. Burr feels very weird being in the middle of the two of them. It's honestly difficult to tell which of them is telling the truth. The sun is making it difficult to think straight. Laurens seems to be teasing Hamilton, but what he's teasing him about, precisely, is a mystery.

Hamilton sort of puffs up in indignation, then very loudly says, “ _Anyway_ ,” and pointedly looks at Burr. “Are you okay? Hydrated?”

“Nobody's hydrated,” Burr mutters. He rubs his eyes and blinks a few times, trying to get his vision to focus.

“ _I'm_ hydrated,” Laurens says.

Burr sways. He's been sort of wobbly for a while now, but with Hamilton pressed up against his side like he is, it's more obvious. He felt unsteady before, but Hamilton's presence is making it much worse.

“Hey. Hey, Burr, look at me.” Hamilton puts his gun down and grabs Burr's face with both hands, tilts it up and stares into his eyes. It's been so long since he saw Hamilton, he's not at all prepared for the sharp jolt of emotion that comes when he touches him. What is he doing? “I didn't come all this way just for you to drop dead of heat stroke.”

He was doing so _well,_ and now Hamilton's eyes are all he can look at and he is completely helpless. His heart pounds in his throat and his ears, and he feels a gut-wrenching urge to lean into his touch. He freezes, forces himself to go as still as possible, suddenly terrified that his body is going to move on its own.

Having Hamilton this close, with his wide concerned eyes and his long dark eyelashes, his skinny wrists, his completely inappropriate lack of self-consciousness, is disastrous. He may as well be strangling him to death. Some traitor part of him says that he wouldn't mind if Hamilton strangled him to death, as long as he looked at him while he did it.

It's not fair, he thinks, to be angry with him for trying to be kind, but he feels angry nonetheless. Hamilton is too oblivious to notice the suffering he's causing, and carries blithely on doing whatever he wants.

“I'm fine,” he says harshly, and smacks Hamilton's hands away. He tries to lean away, too, to put more space between him and Hamilton. This doesn't do much, because there's not much room. “I need to get out of the sun, but I'm fine.”

“Okay. Let's get you out of here,” Hamilton says.

Laurens makes a face. “Easier said than done.”

 

* * *

 

Burr sits, and buries his head in his hands. The room keeps spinning; he's dizzy, and dehydrated, and it's still much too warm. He also doesn't want to look at Laurens and Lafayette and Hamilton, who are all grinning like idiots.

“So, medically speaking,” Hamilton says. “You need a bucket of ice water dumped on your head.”

“Yes, I heard it when the doctor said it, Hamilton,” he says. “I don't believe the doctor required extensive supervision.”

“If you think I'm not going to invite Laurens and Lafayette to watch you get a bucket of ice water dumped on your head, you have severely misjudged my character,” Hamilton says. Burr looks up to give him a nasty look, which is withered somewhat by the sheer unadulterated glee on Hamilton's face. Laurens and Lafayette are holding up their phones.

“Y'all charged your useless phones just so you could take a picture of me getting ice water dumped on my head,” he says.

“Damn, I didn't get one of him saying _y'all,_ ” Laurens says.

Lafayette taps his temple. “It will remain forever in our minds and hearts.”

“That's beautiful,” Laurens says fondly. They elbow each other.

Lafayette looks absolutely exhausted, which makes sense, considering he had to pull a stalemate out of the crushing defeat Lee led them into. “Congratulations, by the way,” Burr says to him. Lafayette bows and twirls his hand in an overly extravagant way.

“I live to serve,” he says, then straightens. “Now, I would like to watch Alexander pour ice water on you.”

“It's good to know that senior commanding officers in the Continental Army bring such dignity and poise to the position,” Burr says dryly. “It inspires a lot of confidence in the nation-building project.”

“Be nice,” Hamilton says, picking up his bucket of ice water.

“I'm always nice. You're the one who invited a Marquis to watch me suffer.”

Hamilton grins at him, and Burr can't help but smile back. He's contagious. It's awful. He jogs over with the ice water and gives a thumbs up to Laurens and Lafayette. “Okay, ready?”

“No,” Burr mutters.

Hamilton squeezes his shoulder. “You'll feel better after. It'll lower your body temperature.”

Then he dumps the bucket of water on him.

“ _Fuck!_ ”

It's cold. Extremely cold. The water hits him hard, and it's sharp and somewhat painful, and everyone laughs.

 

* * *

 

“I'm saving this for when you run for office,” Laurens says, looking at his phone. “You swore. Very loudly. I love it.”

“I'm a lawyer, not a politician,” Burr says, still shivering. He's in dry clothes, but still sort of damp and very cold. He's not in a very good mood. “But if I _was_ a politician, I'd have you assassinated.”

“I'll leave all my blackmail material to Hamilton in my will.”

“Well, you've got it all figured out,” Burr mutters.

“Speaking of people to have assassinated,” Hamilton says, sitting down and picking up his stack of papers. “Lafayette, please tell me Lee got shot.”

“ _General_ Lee,” Burr corrects him. Hamilton rolls his eyes. “Don't roll your eyes, he's a General.”

“He's a shitty general,” Hamilton spits, suddenly surprisingly venomous. He looks up from his papers, expression dark. “Lafayette--”

“He's a shitty general, and very much alive,” Lafayette says. “Although General Washington gave him the scolding of the century, if it's any consolation.”

“It's not,” Hamilton practically growls. “I'm going to--”

“Don't do anything,” Burr says.

Hamilton rounds on him, looking positively furious. It's familiar, and it doesn't make him feel like he's having a heart attack, which is nice for once. He knows how to deal with Hamilton being angry with him. Burr smiles.

“I'm going to tear him apart, and _you're_ not going to stop me,” Hamilton snaps.

“I'm not going to stop you, but I'm going to tell you you shouldn't, and General Washington will say the same thing,” Burr says. Hamilton bristles. There's something very satisfying about watching him get flustered and annoyed. “He outranks you, Alexander. Be--”

“Don't tell me to be sensible!” Hamilton stands up, too frustrated to stay still any longer. “So many people died! _You_ almost died!”

“For once, I agree with Burr,” Lafayette says, wrinkling his nose. “Washington wouldn't like it.”

“I'm with Hamilton,” Laurens says.

“Yes, we know,” Lafayette sneers at him. Laurens kicks him in the shin, hard. “ _Ow!_ ”

Aha. He'd wondered. Burr feels a sharp pang of jealousy, which he decides to shut down immediately by distracting himself with antagonizing Hamilton some more. “General Washington will decide on an appropriate punishment for his mistakes, and I'm sure that punishment won't involve you writing some thousand-page manifesto,” he says.

Hamilton is still pacing and fidgeting, rubbing his right wrist. “General Washington doesn't need to know about it,” he mutters. He seems less aggressive, though. Less ready to fight. “I could ruin him, you know.”

“He did a pretty good job of that all on his own,” Burr says. Hamilton snorts and looks like he's trying not to smile. His pacing slows. “Direct your energy to your actual job, Hamilton. He's not worth your time.”

“I guess,” Hamilton grumbles.

 

* * *

 

Dueling is archaic, and frivolous, and hardly anyone ever does it. The only people who have dueling pistols nowadays are the obscenely rich, and among that small group, very few people still want to have duels. People rarely feel insulted enough to demand satisfaction like you do in a duel. People don't really like fighting that much.

Or, at least, that's how it had been for a while. As the war's gone on, people have gotten more back into dueling as a way to settle things. They've also started loading their dueling pistols with actual bullets, which is another thing that went out of style decades ago.

Burr can't honestly say he's _surprised_ when he hears Charles Lee needs a second. “Technically, it was Laurens who challenged him to the duel, not Alexander,” Angelica says, but everyone knows it was Hamilton, really.

Being the only person he thinks is even remotely good at conflict resolution, Burr volunteers. He thinks, maybe, he'll be able to talk Hamilton down again. If Hamilton tells him to, Laurens will call off the duel.

Probably.

“If you would just write a letter of apology--”

“I won't apologize,” Lee snaps. He looks terrible-- exhausted, angry, jittery. Understandable, given he was rather unceremoniously kicked out of the army in disgrace. He fidgets angrily with the pen Burr gave him, eyes darting around Burr's ten like he's expecting something to jump out at him any minute. “It's just not going to happen.”

Burr pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. “Sir--”

“I _said,_ it's not going to happen. Everything I said was true,” Lee snarls. “Washington won't even face me himself, the coward. What is this Laurence--”

“Laurens.”

“Whatever. He's some friend of Washington's secretary. Not even Washington's secretary himself. It's disgraceful. To back down from a challenge like that with my tail between my legs--”

“Respectfully, sir, standing by what you said isn't going to help you repair your reputation,” Burr cuts him off. Lee doesn't seem to understand that everyone already thinks he's a coward. The focus here ought to be on mitigating the damage he did with what he said about Washington. “It would be better for you to apologize. No one will think you're brave for fighting him.”

Lee stands up, raises his voice. “ _Respectfully,_ _sir,_ Laurence--”

“Laurens.”

“ _Whatever._ He called me a _Southern rat bastard_ and a _racist._ I cannot let that stand.”

Burr rubs his temples and sighs. “Fine.” Virginians. They cannot be reasoned with.

Going into a duel negotiation without an apology is decidedly less than ideal. Hamilton laughs at him.

“You're telling me he's not even _sorry_ , and you're still trying to talk it out? You're absurd, Burr,” Hamilton combs his hand through his hair and his grin is a little too sinister. “The man's an unapologetic racist. Even if he apologized, he'd still be completely worthless. He's been practically begging to get shot for years.”

“Hamilton, he's harmless,” Burr says.

“Burr, he called General Washington 'an uneducated black',” Hamilton says. “The question isn't _if_ Laurens is gonna fight him, it's where and when.”

“You're going to get yourself and Laurens in trouble.”

“Laurens is an adult, he can make his own decisions. Time and place, Burr. I know Lee gave you his preference already.”

The hilltop, a little ways away from camp, at dawn. They agree, write it down, shake hands. There will be another opportunity to try to talk Hamilton out of this, but Burr is not optimistic about his chances. He at least needs an apology, and he probably needs Lee to do something dramatic to prove how contrite and regretful he is. Which isn't going to happen.

He sighs and rubs his eyes. This is exhausting.

“Hey, uh, by the way,” Hamilton says. He looks nervous, suddenly, which is a bad sign. He fidgets, rubbing his wrists distractedly, and avoids eye contact. He clears his throat. “Eliza and I are getting married. She asked, ah, a week ago? Something like that.”

Everything crashes down on him at once, an unpleasant and intense mixture of emotion and physical sensation; pain shoots through his chest, he can't breathe, he can't move. Jealousy rises in his throat, bitter and nauseating.

Hamilton looks at him with a peculiar facial expression-- some strange mix of expectation, hope, and guilt.

“Great,” Burr says; his voice cracks and it comes out hoarse and high-pitched and incredibly insincere. He clears his throat and tries again, trying to arrange his facial features into something that looks happy. He's not sure how well that goes. “That's great. Congratulations.”

“I mean, it's not-- we're waiting until things are a bit less chaotic, so we can have a proper wedding, so it'll be a while, yet-- probably, you know, more than a year-- it's just. You know. She asked,” Hamilton's hesitant and stumbling. Burr stares at him, ears ringing, and he cannot for the life of him fathom why he's so _nervous._ Hamilton combs both his hands through his hair and exhales, eyes wide. “It's kind of huge.”

“Yep,” Burr says.

Hamilton looks at him for a moment, like he's expecting something else. Burr is too busy trying not to look like he's not breathing and can't think of anything else to say. Nothing helpful, anyway. He can think of a few terrible things to say, like _don't,_ and _how could you,_ and _why do you look so nervous_.

“Yeah,” Hamilton says finally. “Anyway, I just thought I should tell you. See you tomorrow.”

“Right. Tomorrow.” Burr's voice sounds a little too faint, a little too small.

 

* * *

 

 

“Burr,” Lee says, trotting to catch up with him. “Burr!”

“Don't talk to me,” Burr growls. He's in an absolutely terrible mood. “Don't say anything. I have one more chance to avert this whole disaster, and if you say anything at all, you'll ruin it.”

“That's extremely rude!”

Burr shoots him a nasty look over his shoulder, which makes him shut up for the rest of the walk up the hill.

Predictably, his attempt at negotiating goes very poorly.

“Your man has to answer for his words, Burr,” Hamilton says firmly.

“He doesn't have to die.”

Hamilton's jaw tightens. “We're going to have to agree to disagree,” he says.

It's hopeless. Burr throws up his hands and walks away. There's nothing else he can do.

Ten paces, two almost-simultaneous gunshots. Laurens remains on his feet, gun in hand; Lee collapses on the ground, bleeding from his side and swearing profusely.

“Well, I'm satisfied,” Laurens says coolly, lowering his gun.

“Fuck you!” Lee shouts, struggling to get up, holding his hand over the gunshot wound in his side. “I'm not!”

Burr snaps, “For God's sake, Lee--” and is cut off by the sound of Lee firing his gun again. He misses spectacularly, firing into the air several feet to the left of Laurens.

Laurens crosses the ten pace distance in a few strides, plants his foot on Lee's chest, and slams him flat onto the ground. Lee yelps in pain. Laurens stares down at him, pointing his gun at Lee's head. “Yield, traitor,” he says.

“How dare you!”

“Laurens, you've won the duel,” Burr says, stepping forward. He's not sure he wants to get between them, but this is getting bad. “Leave him be.”

“Duel's not over until we both agree it's over,” Laurens says, not taking his eyes off Lee's face. “Or until one of us is dead.”

“ _Hamilton!_ ”

Everyone looks up. Hamilton's eyes go wide. “Shit,” Laurens says under his breath.

George Washington is storming towards them, looking absolutely furious.

“This should be fun,” Burr says dryly.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah, he's not the choice i woulda gone with
> 
> note: lee in this fic is a white dude & not based on the ensemble actor who plays him (john rua) who is not a white dude !


	8. tomcat

Watching Hamilton get yelled at is deeply satisfying. It's too bad Burr has to leave halfway through, when Washington rounds on him and Laurens and snaps, “Get this man to a doctor before he bleeds to death!”

Burr and Laurens have to carry Lee together, which Laurens isn't happy about. “Should've aimed higher, got you in the heart,” he growls. Lee spits blood at him, and Laurens shoots a scowl at Burr. “He's the worst. I can't believe you volunteered to be his second. What is _wrong_ with you?”

“I think volunteering to try to avoid violent conflict is better than stomping on the dude you just shot,” Burr snaps. “You _stepped on him._ ”

Laurens shakes his head. “Anyone would've stepped on him.”

“I wouldn't have.”

“Yeah, well,” Laurens mutters. “You're a real fuckin' hero, aren't you, Aaron.”

“Yeah, I am, John, actually, thanks for noticing,” Burr says snidely. “I have a medal.”

Lee makes an unpleasant gurgling noise and slurs something he can't quite make out. Laurens elbows him, right near where he shot him, and the man shouts.

“You're awful.”

“Yeah, well, Alexander still likes me more than he likes you, so,” Laurens says peevishly. Burr scowls at him.

“Bite me.”

“I would, if we weren't holding this horrible white man,” Laurens nudges Lee with entirely too much force again. “Maybe later.”

“Eugh,” Lee says.

“Shut up,” Laurens says.

They dump him with the doctor, who admonishes them quite a bit for not carrying him more carefully. They both watch as Lee is carried off in a stretcher, then stand in silence for a moment.

“Want a drink?” Laurens asks.

Burr isn't sure it's a good idea, but he definitely does want a drink. He feels like garbage. “Sure.”

 

* * *

 

Laurens pours two glasses of whiskey, downs his in one go, then pours himself another one. His tent is a bit of a mess, but not too bad. Burr's eyes catch on a sweater on the floor. It's Hamilton's; he recognizes the blue floral patch that's clumsily sewn over a small hole. He sips his whiskey and stares at it in sullen silence.

“Alexander's getting married,” Laurens says, after a while.

Burr looks at him. Laurens is staring moodily at the sweater, too, curled into his chair, knees pressed against his chest. “Yeah,” he says. Thinking about it again feels like a lead weight settling into his stomach.

“She's very pretty and very nice,” Laurens says.

“Yeah,” Burr says again. He hasn't met Eliza, but he's pretty sure Hamilton wouldn't marry someone who wasn't pretty and nice.

Laurens takes a large gulp of his drink and sighs. “He asked me to be his best man,” he says. “The wedding's not even happening for at least a year, and he already asked me.”

“He likes you,” Burr says.

“Yeah. I know,” Laurens sighs, and tugs his hair out of the ponytail it's been in all day. “He just doesn't...”

He trails off, looking profoundly lost. Burr taps his fingers on the side of his glass. “You two are close. That won't change.”

Laurens leans his head back, staring at the ceiling of the tent. “Eliza's sweet,” he says. “She's like him.”

“How?”

“She makes you love her. Something about her face,” Laurens gestures vaguely with his drink. “She's gentle. Kind. Y'know? Like, I'd take a fucking bullet for her, and she stole my b--” Laurens stops himself abruptly and slightly too late, and cringes. “Urgh.”

Burr says nothing, just drinks his whiskey in silence while Laurens runs his hands through his hair and gathers his wits.

“Anyway, she's nice,” Laurens mumbles. “I'll get over it. I want him to be happy, so. I'll deal.”

Burr glances at the sweater on the floor. “Seems like you need to grow a spine first.”

To his surprise, Laurens laughs. “Yeah, I know,” he says. “Easier said than done, though.”

“You have to.”

Laurens tilts his head and looks at him, smiling wryly. There's something very tired and sad in that smile. A loneliness. A helplessness. “He can be very persuasive,” he says.

“Yeah, I bet,” Burr mutters.

Laurens points at him with his drink. “You better watch out, fam.”

Burr leans back and raises his eyebrows at him. “Watch out for what?”

“You _know_ what,” Laurens says.

“I assure you, I do not.”

“You're a smart guy, you'll figure it out.”

 

* * *

 

The next time he sees Laurens, it's a few days later. Hamilton is talking to him about something, looking bright and cheerful as ever, and seems to be drawing all over Laurens's arm with a marker. His hand that isn't holding the marker is pinning Laurens's hand to the table, presumably so that he doesn't move and ruin whatever the hell he's doing. Laurens is sitting and smiling very patiently, fingers curled around Hamilton's hand.

Burr raises his eyebrows at him. Laurens shrugs in response, smiling in a resigned sort of way, and Hamilton smacks him on the nose with the marker. “I told you not to move!”

 

* * *

 

They split ways; Hamilton stays with Washington, headed north to New York City, Laurens heads south. Burr goes with Angelica to Philadelphia, helps finish taking the city back. It's partially in ruins, of course, but they manage to drive the British out within two months.

Things are good up in New York, as well, he hears. Lafayette has managed to convince France to send foreign aid, finally, and it's turned the tide. Hamilton's optimistic in his letters-- which, by the way, only rarely mention Laurens or Eliza-- that it'll be theirs again soon.

They start to bring back cellphone service. They clear rubble out of the streets. Burr helps sort information on British troop movements. Hamilton starts calling him instead of writing letters; he likes to talk out loud, apparently. Burr puts him on speakerphone and does paperwork while Hamilton talks.

Once, as Hamilton is explaining in excruciating detail why he's conflicted about a particular phrase in a speech he's writing for Washington, he says: “You realize I don't care, right,” tapping the end of his pen on his stack of papers. “At all.”

“Oh, I know,” Hamilton says cheerfully. “I just assumed you like listening to me talk.”

Burr scowls at his phone. “Don't assume that.”

“Even you're not so polite you'd listen to someone talk for three hours about things you don't care about,” Hamilton says. “So, either you're interested in what I have to say, or you like listening to me talk.”

“Maybe I'm more polite than you think I am,” Burr says.

“Oh, you're _definitely_ not,” Hamilton chuckles. “Can I keep talking about my thing now?”

“Fine,” Burr mutters.

He tells himself that listening to Hamilton helps motivate him. Hamilton likes to humblebrag, which is immensely annoying, and being pissed at Hamilton is still the best way he knows how to deal with being obsessed with him.

Sometimes, sure, he sets his paperwork down and leans back in his chair and just listens to him talk for the sake of listening to him. His voice has a strange rhythm to it, like his letters-- sometimes he's curiously formal, and sometimes he's extremely casual-- and it's absorbing.

 

* * *

 

They push the British south, take back New York City. The war keeps dragging on, draining and exhausting, but the North is almost secure. They get a break. Things in the South are still bad, but they get a break, for a little while. Hamilton is extremely annoyed about this, and tells Burr this several times over the course of a few days.

“The General is keeping me up here in New York! He says I need a break. I _don't_ need a break.”

“How are your wrists?” Burr asks, rummaging in his drawers for something to wear. Hamilton doesn't want a break, but he does. He's going out tonight.

Hamilton makes faint grumbling noises for a minute. “Bad,” he says, reluctantly. “I mean, it's not a big deal.”

“Can you even hold a gun?” Burr pulls out a black button-down and inspects it. He's not sure how well his clothes from before the war will fit.

“Anything's possible if you set your mind to it,” Hamilton says. Now he's snippy. “It's not a debilitating thing, Burr, it just hurts a bit. I can power through it.”

“You've been powering through it for four years.”

“Burr, I got carpal tunnel freshman year.”

The shirt seems about right; he tosses it onto his bed and drags out his suitcases to see if he still has a blazer. “Uh-huh.”

“That was seven years ago.”

Burr looks up. Seven years? “Was it?”

“Yikes,” Hamilton says. “Burr, do you know how old I am?”

Shit. He doesn't. “Fifteen,” he says.

“Ha ha. I'm twenty-three.”

“Good job. You've been ruining your wrists for seven years, give them a break for a few days. You can go back to ruining them when the General says you can,” Burr says. He checks his watch; it's almost seven. “Listen, Hamilton, I have a thing.”

“A thing?”

“I'm going out, I'm getting drinks, I'm going to meet girls,” Burr says firmly.

“Girls, huh,” Hamilton says. Burr's not sure he likes his dry skeptical tone. He casts a sour look at his phone and resists the urge to pick it up and smash it against the wall.

“Yes, Hamilton, _girls_ ,” he says.

“You haven't gone on a single date the entire time I've known you,” Hamilton says. He says it thoughtfully, like it just occurred to him. When he puts it in those words, though-- _since I've known you_ \-- it feels dangerously close to something important.

“Maybe I have and you just didn't know about it. You don't know that much about me, Hamilton,” Burr says. He, of course, hasn't gone on any dates, and he knows very well that if he had Hamilton absolutely would have found out about it some way or another.

“Sure, Burr,” Hamilton says. “What kind of girls do you like, then? What's your type?”

He has no idea how to answer that question. “I don't know, Hamilton,” He sighs and rubs his eyes. “I like people who I like, there's no list of criteria for--"

“ _People_ , huh,” Hamilton says.

“Oh, Christ, Hamilton, I misspoke,” Burr tosses the rest of his outfit on the bed. “Don't hound me about it.”

“You don't misspeak, Burr,” Hamilton says. “You just came out of the closet, a little bit. We're all very proud of you.”

“You, of all people, coming to me with this,” Burr mutters under his breath, yanking his shirt off over his head. “ _The closet,_ indeed.”

“What? I couldn't hear you.”

“Nothing. Shut up. There's no closet, and you need to mind your own business.”

“But I love minding your business.”

Burr shrugs on his dress shirt and walks over to the desk where he put his phone. “I'm hanging up on you now, and I'm going out.”

“Okay,” Hamilton says cheerfully. “You're a very attractive fellow, Burr, I'm sure lots of people will be delighted by your company.”

“Don't be weird,” Burr says, picking up the phone. “Rest your hands.”

“Make me,” Hamilton says. Burr rolls his eyes and he's right about to hang up on him when--

Maybe he imagines it. Maybe he's just gone temporarily insane, and he's hallucinating. This seems reasonable. He's pretty sure there's something wrong with his ears, because he's pretty sure Hamilton's voice lowers and he gets this strange teasing kind of tone and says,

“Hey, what're you wearing?”

Burr stares at his phone. “Ex _cuse_ me?”

“You're getting dressed for a night out, you're trying to look nice, I wanna know what you're wearing,” Hamilton says. “Paint me a verbal picture.”

“Fuck off,” Burr says, and hangs up on him.

 

* * *

 

He meets somebody. (Of course he does. He's a very attractive fellow, after all.)

She's lovely.

This woman-- “Theodosia,” she says, “But I really prefer Theo.”-- is beautiful. She's tall, and smart, and charming. She has a lovely smile and lovely hair, and, to his delight-- her eyes are a clear pale green. Not even a little bit brown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yall are still being so nice to me and im dying ahahaha ;;;; thank you so much for your continued support it lifts my bedraggled spirits!!!!!!  
> i hope its not too spammy to update again so soon! ive been writing all day haha.
> 
> note: lee in this fic is a white dude & not based on the ensemble actor who plays him (john rua) who is not a white dude !


	9. special someone

Theo wraps her hands around her iced coffee; vegan, with caramel in it. He drinks his coffee black; sometimes with one sugar, if he's feeling unusually extravagant that day. He's gotten used to not having any sugar, so the taste is somewhat repulsive to him now. It's strange, having coffee like this; the city around them is almost normal, with people going about their business. He is out during the day, drinking coffee with another person, not holed up in an army base in the dark; this is unusual.

Theo's dark hair is pulled back into a loose bun, pulling it away from her neck. She wears a lot of jewelry; dangling delicate necklaces and sparkling gold earrings. None of it is as conspicuous as the wedding ring, of course. He is careful not to stare at it too much. Her smile is always small, somewhat reserved; she doesn't show her teeth, and her face barely creases. She is sincere, but withdrawn. “I think I've read some of your papers,” she says.

He's honestly surprised. They were good papers, of course, but published in law journals, and she's not a lawyer. “Oh?”

“I like to skim through academic journals outside my field sometimes, to keep me on my toes,” she says. “I'm an economist, by the way, I don't know if I mentioned.”

“An economist. How delightfully sensible,” Burr says. She laughs and brushes a stray bit of hair out of her face. “What did you think of my papers, then?”

“Your writing is very clear and concise, and I like that. That's why I remembered the name. You were published very young, I didn't realize at the time.”

“They say I'm a prodigy,” he says, leaning his chin on his hand. She's very pretty. He could look at her all day. It's been a while since he attempted to flirt with anyone. He hopes he doesn't embarrass himself. “I'm told that I'm terribly impressive.”

“Oh, I'm sure,” Theo says; she puts her chin on her hand, as well, mirroring him with a teasing smile. “You know, I've been told something similar.”

“We have so much in common,” he says, “Maybe--”

His phone rings, buzzing in his pocket. He knows who it's going to be before he takes it out, but he has to check it. There's always a distant chance that it is actually important and that he does actually need to answer. “I'm sorry,” he says to Theo, and checks. It's Hamilton. He glances back up at her, apologetically; she inclines her head. “I'll just be a moment.”

He answers; he knows it's rude, but Hamilton does work for George Washington, and there's always a chance it's something dire. “Hamilton,” he says quietly. “Is this important?”

“Burr, everything I've ever said is important,” Hamilton says indignantly. “Who answers the phone like that?”

“I'm busy right now, so if it's not important--”

“Since when are you too busy to talk to me?” Hamilton sounds genuinely annoyed. “I thought you were still taking a break. If you don't want to talk to me, you can _say_ that. Don't make excuses.”

“I'm--” He hesitates, glances at Theo. She quirks her eyebrows at him and waves. What is he busy with? He's on a date, but something tells him that telling Hamilton that will open a whole other can of worms. He lowers his voice and hisses, “I'm in a meeting.”

“Fair enough, I suppose. I'll talk to you later.”

“Later,” Burr says curtly, and hangs up. He shoves his phone back in his pocket and turns back to Theo. He feels strangely embarrassed, and he says, “I'm very sorry about that.”

“Oh, don't be. You said Hamilton-- is that Alexander Hamilton?” Theo seems intrigued. He keeps his face firmly pleasant and doesn't grimace at all, even though he feels rather sour. He doesn't want to talk about Hamilton on this date with this beautiful girl. He doesn't even want to think about Hamilton.

“Yes,” he says.

“The one who writes General Washington's speeches?”

Ugh. Hopefully she won't ask him to introduce them. Sure, Hamilton's engaged, but that doesn't seem to make much of difference to him when it comes to Laurens. Heaven knows what he's like with other women. A little more stiffly, he says, “The very same.”

“He's quite good,” Theo says. “I hear he's handsome.”

Burr sips his coffee to buy him time to think of a response to that. Is Hamilton handsome? Well-- his eyes-- it's besides the point. That's not important. If he says that Hamilton is, indeed, handsome, he sounds gay and he knows it'll get back to Hamilton somehow. If he says no, though, he could sound defensive. It's not a good position to be in.

“He certainly thinks so,” he says.

“Are you two close?” Theo asks. He just barely stops himself from sighing.

“It's complicated,” he says tiredly. There's no other way he can think to describe his relationship with Hamilton. “I hate to be rude, Theo, but I would desperately enjoy a change of subject.”

“Oh, of course,” she says easily. “Perhaps you can tell me about him some other time.”

The rest of the date goes well; they schedule another one, and she kisses him on the cheek before she leaves. That date goes well, too; and the one after that, and the one after that. She's delightful; beautiful and smart, of course, but it's not just that. Something about her is profoundly soothing. She's collected and withdrawn, not prone to impulsivity or emotional outbursts of any kind. Being around her is like a breath of fresh air. She makes him feel very grounded.

The fact that she's married feels almost inconsequential. He knows it isn't, but it causes him no particular anxiety. Her being ten years older than him and married to a British officer seems trivial in comparison to every disastrously horrible thing about Hamilton. He hates to admit that the two are comparable in any way, but it feels somehow safer to think about it when he's with Theo. She doesn't make him feel like his organs are tearing themselves apart, or like he's being strangled; she does quite the opposite, and makes everything that causes him stress feel less important, less fraught. Their dates are thoroughly pleasant, and he genuinely enjoys her company a great deal.

She makes him happy.

He doesn't tell Hamilton.

 

* * *

 

Theo's apartment in Philadelphia makes him homesick, which is new; he hasn't even thought about his place in New York for a long time. He wonders if it's still there, or if it's been blown up. He honestly doesn't know. News is still difficult to keep track of without the internet. Anyway, Theo's apartment is gorgeous. It's small and tidy and full of books; two of the walls in her bedroom are just floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

She has no pictures of her husband in her apartment; he notes this, but they don't talk about it. She doesn't talk about her husband, so he doesn't press the issue. He knows that the man is a redcoat, and that he's in Georgia, and that's about it.

He spends a lot of time at Theo's place, rather than at the army base; it's nicer, and she says that she likes having him there. He knows he won't be in Philadelphia forever, so he's eager to spend time with her in person when he can. She has a very comfortable couch. And a very comfortable bed.

Hamilton still calls whenever he pleases, and Burr's polite requests that he not call him at certain times of day are met with aggravation. Their conversations generally happen around the times when Burr is at the base, but Hamilton's schedule is remarkably unpredictable.

So, he supposes that it was inevitable that Hamilton would eventually call him at an incredibly inconvenient time.

His phone rings and buzzes on the nightstand; the noise is extremely loud, and jolts Burr awake. It's pitch black, the middle of the night, and he's disoriented for a minute because he's not used to waking up in the dead of night in Theo's apartment. He blinks, brain foggy with sleep.

Of course the racket wakes Theo up, too; she makes a soft groaning sound and presses her forehead against his shoulder. “What a dreadful noise,” she mumbles.

While she is not very heavy, her arm slung over his waist still prevents him from sitting up, much in the same way a cat sitting on one's lap prevents one from standing. He could move, but that would dislodge her arm. So it takes him a moment to grab his phone, because it's dark and he can't lean up to see where it actually is.

“Sorry,” he says hoarsely.

She pats his side reassuringly and presses a kiss against the crook of his neck. “'s okay.” She's an absolute angel, even in the dead of night.

He manages to get a grip on his phone and picks it up-- the light from the screen is blinding, so he screws his eyes shut and answers. “Hello?”

“Aaron Burr!”

Hamilton sounds very awake. How horrid of him. Burr has absolutely no idea what time it is, but he knows it's not a time when anyone ought to be awake. “Ugh. Hamilton, I was sleeping,” he says; he sounds absolutely terrible. His voice is gravelly and sort of slurred. He is so tired.

“Oh? That's too bad,” Hamilton's tone isn't mean, just dismissive, which is somehow more infuriating. “I've been looking at wedding stuff all day with Eliza, literally until just now. Please tell me you have something to talk about that has nothing to do with weddings?”

“It's the middle of the night,” he growls. “I was _sleeping._ ”

“Yeah, and now you're not any more,” Hamilton has the gall to sound impatient. “What have you been working on? I know you're still working, even though you're supposedly taking a break.”

“I'm not going to talk to you right now. Call Laurens.”

“He didn't pick up,” Hamilton grumbles.

“Yeah, you know why? Because it's the middle of the fucking night. Go to bed.”

“Burr, please, wedding plans are driving me up the wall. I'm a desperate man. I just need to have a conversation. Please? Just a few minutes?”

He hesitates, embarrassingly enough. What is _wrong_ with him? “I really can't right now,” he says firmly. “Go to sleep. I'll talk to you tomorrow.”

Hamilton groans, and is about to say something; Burr hangs up on him, then turns his phone off and tosses it onto the floor.

“He's ridiculous,” he says, rolling over so he can wrap his arms around Theo. He buries his face in her hair and sighs. “Never stops talking.”

“You still haven't introduced me to him,” Theo says.

“Mm.”

“It's a little strange, considering the two of you talk every day.”

“He still hasn't introduced me to Eliza, and they've been together for years,” he says. “Don't read too much into it. We're just not that close.”

She snorts. “Not that close, huh.”

 

* * *

 

His break can't last forever; things start to get bad again, and he's posted further south, where he can be useful. Leaving Theo is harder than he thought; he really does like her a lot. She promises to call every day, and takes a lot of pictures of him eating breakfast and putting on his socks.

It's strange, how easily he gets used to killing people again. It occurs to him as a distant, sort of detached thought one day in the middle of a fight; he would never have thought of himself as the kind of person who could kill someone. Yet here he is. He can't even remember how many people he's killed, or their faces. He isn't wracked with guilt or haunted by the dead. They're just gone, and he feels fine about it. He wonders idly what that says about him as a person.

After a few weeks of fighting, he gets a phone call from-- surprisingly-- Laurens. It's the middle of the afternoon, and Burr's in his office. He has an office, now that he's a Lieutenant Colonel. It's not very nice, but it has a desk and windows, which is better than most rooms he's had to spend time in for the last few years.

“He sent out wedding invitations today,” Laurens says gloomily. Burr very acutely misses Theo, who it seems is the only person he knows who hasn't completely forgotten basic manners.

“Okay,” Burr says.

“You're invited.”

Burr snorts. “It'd be pretty fucking rude of him if I wasn't, the number of times he's called to complain about wedding planning.”

“Yeah,” Laurens says. He pauses for a long time, and Burr rolls his eyes. Laurens really needs to get his shit together. He has a strong suspicion that he still hasn't even tried to break it off with Hamilton. “Do you think you'll go?”

That gives him pause. He hadn't really thought about it, not in concrete terms. Maybe it would be good for him to go. It would be really rude not to. Hamilton will be expecting him. The thought of seeing Hamilton in person again makes him feel slightly ill, though, and he doesn't want to ruin the mood at the man's wedding. Plus, he's a bit busy fighting a war down here. He's not even sure he'd be able to travel anywhere.

“I'll try,” he says. “Is that all you called for?”

“Eeghhh,” Laurens says.

“Laurens.”

“Yeah, sorry, I'm just stupid. Hey, uh, me and Angelica were going to get drunk together the night before the wedding, wanna join us?”

That sounds like the most pathetic party imaginable. Burr wrinkles his nose and glares out the window. Why would they think he wanted to join them? “I'm not big on wallowing in self-pity,” he says.

“Don't be a dick,” Laurens snaps. “I was trying to be nice.”

“You're not very good at being nice, then.”

“You're so obnoxious,” Laurens mutters under his breath. “Fine, whatever, I'll see you at the wedding.”

“I don't know if I'll be able to make it.”

“If you try to make up an excuse and skip it, I'll tell Hamilton it's because you hate him,” Laurens says. “So be there.”

Burr is about to say something about how he's being juvenile, and how the threat is pretty toothless considering how often he tells Hamilton he hates him, but Laurens hangs up on him in a huff. He's pretty sure he doesn't want to go to this wedding. But it'll be good for him, probably.

 

 


	10. smile more

**New Texts (5)**

**J Laurens  
** heey

 **A Schuyler  
** HEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

 **A Schuyler  
** MOTHERFUKCER

 **A Schuyler  
** HANG OUT W/ US

 **J Laurens  
** you are missign out we are having a great time wallowing in self-pity

Burr stares at his phone and sighs, feeling rather put-upon. It's only eight o'clock; how can they be this drunk already? He texts back:

 **To: J Laurens  
** Have a glass of water.

 **To: A Schuyler  
** I'm several states away right now, sorry. See you tomorrow.

Laurens responds immediately:

 **J Laurens  
** ILL DRINK WATER WHEN IM DEAD

Angelica takes a bit longer, although he can see that she's typing. He suspects she is editing typos.

 **A Schuyler  
** how can you miss this crucial meeting of the in love with alexander hamilton club

Heat rises in his face and he bristles, scowling darkly at his phone.

 **To: A Schuyler  
** I am not in love with Hamilton. You are drunk.

 **A Schuyler  
** aaron pls

 **To: A Schuyler  
** Angelica, please.

 **A Schuyler  
** its ok that youre gay

 **To: A Schuyler  
** I have a girlfriend.

 **A Schuyler  
** WHAT????

 **A Schuyler  
** SINCE WHEN?????? WTF YOU LITTLE SHIT

 **A Schuyler  
** WHO????? WTF??

He ignores their texts for the rest of the night.

 

* * *

 

As soon as he gets to the wedding-- several hours late, having missed the ceremony entirely-- he knows he shouldn't have shown up at all. Hamilton is radiantly happy, beaming, for once not even a little bit exhausted. He's across the room, drinking with his friends, chattering excitedly. He _shines._ The sheer unadulterated joy in Hamilton's face feels contagious; Burr finds himself smiling, too.

As he approaches, telling himself to keep it together, Laurens spots him and grins. He looks happier than Burr expected, although he supposes it must be difficult to be miserable when Hamilton is that happy. Laurens elbows Hamilton and nods in Burr's direction, says something that Burr can't hear, and Hamilton turns.

The full force of Alexander's happiness slams him in the face; his smile, his bright eyes, his breathless energy. It's almost unbearable. He's _so_ happy. He stands as Burr walks over, and says, “Well! If it isn't Aaron Burr!”

Burr smiles and gets halfway through saying “congratulations” before Alexander interrupts him with a too-tight hug, grinning and laughing.

“I didn't think you'd make it!” he yells.

Alexander's never actually had the gall to hug him before; it surprises a wheezing laugh out of him. “I'm sorry I'm late,” he says.

“Never mind that! I'm glad you're here at all!” Alexander grabs Burr's upper arms and holds him at arm's length, practically vibrating with excited energy as he looks him over. It is good to see him, Burr thinks. Especially this happy. His cheeks are slightly flushed, his hair a bit mussed up, his clothes wrinkled; Burr suspects he's been hugging a lot of people tonight. He looks excited and carefree and he isn't physically injuring himself with work. “Dressed up and everything! You look great!”

“It's your wedding, I'm not going to _not_ dress up,” Burr says dryly. Even sarcasm is a bit difficult to muster in the face of Alexander's overwhelming cheeriness. “You look good, yourself.”

He does look good. His suit actually fits him. “Thanks!”

“And, of course, congratulations. Is the bride around? We still haven't been introduced,” Burr says, glancing around. “I'd like to say hello to Angelica, as well.”

“Oh, she's around somewhere-- she has way more guests than I do, so she's occupied. Angelica's with her, wherever she is,” Alexander waves his hand vaguely at the rest of the party. “You haven't met Eliza? You have to, she's the best. I love her. We're married now, you know." He's drunk, but charmingly so, just a bit slurred and vague and wobbly.

Laurens, Lafayette, and Mulligan are all sitting around the table, drinking; he's surprised to see Mulligan, since he's supposed to be an undercover spy and probably shouldn't be at a Continental Army soldier's wedding. Burr smiles at them and waves. They raise their glasses in response, easy and friendly. “I see the whole gang is here,” he says.

“Hey, asshole,” Laurens says.

“You're late,” Lafayette says. “Boooo.”

“Delightful as ever. General Washington couldn't make it?”

The lads keep heckling him. Alexander waves his hand at them, brow furrowed. “Ignore them, they're drunk. Washington stopped by earlier, he couldn't stay.”

“A star-studded event,” Burr says.

“Yeah-- yourself included. Congrats on your promotion, Lieutenant Colonel,” Alexander still hasn't taken his hand off one of Burr's arms. His face falls a little; he looks wistful. “From me and the general. He said to tell you he sends well-wishes. He heard you almost got shot again, said to take it easy.”

“ _I_ heard you're seeing someone,” Laurens says loudly.

Burr glares at him, and he'd glare at Angelica too if she were here. Alexander looks intrigued. “I think I should go,” Burr says. He doesn't want to talk to Alexander about this. It was nice to see him, but if he stays too long this could get bad.

“No, these guys should go, they're being jerks,” Alexander gestures broadly at his friends. “They're jerks.”

“I think they're fine,” Burr says. “Alexander, I'll just--”

“Let's go over there,” Alexander does not indicate where _there_ is, and starts dragging Burr away from the table. Burr shoots a pleading look at Laurens over his shoulder, hoping he'll rein him in; Laurens just makes a face at him and takes another swig of his beer. Helpful, as always.

“Alexander, really, it's fine,” he says. He's not sure being alone with Alexander when he's drunk is a wise idea. He's not sure what he thinks might happen, but whatever it is it probably isn't good.

“No, they're being jerks, and I know you're not going to give me the dish on your secret girlfriend if we're with them,” Alexander says. “Which you absolutely have to do.”

“Don't ditch your friends at your wedding, it's rude."

Alexander turns to him, his smile sort of soft and friendly. “It's really fine, Burr, I'm hanging out with them all night, don't get weird.”

He pulls Burr to a quiet spot against the wall, and tucks his hands into his pockets. “So-- you have a girlfriend?”

Burr sighs and smooths his hand over his head. “Yes.”

“You should have brought her,” Alexander's tone is warmer than he's ever heard, his smile soft. It's like they're actually friends. Burr's heart skips a beat, and his chest aches, and he smiles back. “It's a wedding party, it's a perfect date. You could impress her with how many famous people you know.”

“You and Lafayette are not nearly as impressive in person as you are in theory,” Burr says dryly. “Seriously, Alexander--”

“It's Alexander tonight, huh?” Alexander leans against the wall, still smiling at him with a truly disorienting amount of care.

Burr crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the wall, too. “You're getting married. There's two Hamiltons tonight.”

Alexander blinks; his long eyelashes are ever so slightly distracting. “Can I call you Aaron?”

“Sure,” Burr says. “It's your party.”

“Why haven't you mentioned your girlfriend before, Aaron?” Alexander asks. His smile fades a little bit and his eyes acquire an unpleasant piercing quality. Burr looks away, shifting uncomfortably.

“It's complicated,” he says.

“By complicated, do you mean she's not real? You can tell me if she's not real,” Alexander teases. “I'll only tease you about it for a week, max.”

“She's married,” he says shortly. Alexander looks taken aback.

“Married,” he repeats, surprised.

Burr lowers his voice, just in case. “Her husband's a British officer.”

“Oh, shit.”

“She's lovely, and I'm sure you'll like her, I just really--”

“No, I get it,” Alexander cuts him off, sparing him the torture of having to stumble through a clumsy explanation. He leans closer and rubs Burr's arm, looking serious. “I'd like to meet her. When it's less complicated.”

Guilt gnaws in his stomach. Alexander's glowing energy is gone, his smile is gone, and Burr needs to leave before he completely ruins the night for everyone. “I should go,” he says.

“But--”

“Congrats again, Alexander,” He leans forward and-- he's about to leave, no one's looking, and he needs to put the smile back on Alexander's face. He can't be the one who ruined that. He puts his hand on Alexander's cheek, gently, and murmurs, “Smile more.”

Alexander wraps his fingers around his wrist and looks at him for a moment, eyes flicking over his face like he's trying to read him. “You should stay, Aaron,” he says. “I can introduce you to Eliza-- you should at least say hi to Angelica.”

He could. But he shouldn't, for so many reasons. “Have a good night,” he says. “I'll see you on the other side of the war.”

Alexander's grip on his wrist tightens for a moment, and then he smiles, tired and exasperated and fond. “See you on the other side of the war,” he echoes, and lets go of his wrist.

As he leaves, he waves good-bye to Laurens and the rest as he passes. All three of them give him a lazy sort of mocking salute.

As soon as he's out the door, his phone buzzes.

 

**New Text (1)**

**J Laurens  
** Coward

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're now back to your regularly scheduled Eye Contact And Angst...... two updates today to make up for the lack of Gay in the last chapter haaha ;;;;;;;;; i hope this isnt too short ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; 
> 
> as always i love every single one of yall reading this ;;;;;


	11. wait for it

His hands tremble the whole train ride back down south. The warmth of Alexander's skin lingers on his palm and his wrist like a ghost. It makes him feel unsteady and shaken. It was stupid of him to think that he would walk away from this feeling totally fine. It was fine at the time, but now he feels profoundly stupid. He shouldn't have touched him. He crossed a line.

He can't keep calling him Alexander. It's not good for him; it gives their relationship a tint of intimacy. Too much; Hamilton called him Aaron. The distance afforded by calling him Hamilton instead feels safer.

He wishes Hamilton hadn't been so happy to see him. He wishes he hadn't hugged him, or looked at him the way he did, or smiled at him the way he did. He wishes a lot of things, really. It's especially annoying because he ordinarily would not consider himself a _wishful_ person. Wishing is an incredibly unhelpful way to spend one's time. (He has similar feelings about prayer. God does what He wants, and pretending that you have any semblance of control over that is foolishness. The only thing you have control over is yourself.)

He rubs his wrist where Hamilton grabbed him and shivers; if Hamilton had _told_ him to stay, if he'd been more assertive right then, he would have stayed. He hates that.

But this is what you get, he thinks, when you don't go to church for ten years. This is just what you get. He presses his head against the window of the train and watches the scenery blur past. Every time he sees Hamilton, he erodes his self-control a little bit more.

How casually Angelica accused him of being in love with Hamilton still nags at him. To name something is to make it real. It allows that thing some form of expression. It makes the thing knowable. This thing that constricts his chest and makes him feel like he's dying every time Hamilton smiles at him-- it's not something that he can afford to give that kind of solidity to. It's already more intense and visceral than anything he's ever felt before; if it gets any more real than it already is, it'll overwhelm him entirely.

His phone buzzes. He glances at it for a second; Hamilton and Angelica, texting him. Nothing from Theo, the only person he actually wants to talk to right now. She'll be asleep, he thinks. It's late. He puts his phone in his pocket and closes his eyes. Hamilton is relentless. He'll never leave him alone. Once Hamilton's got his nightmarish claws in you, you're stuck with him until he's done with you. Hamilton always gets to dictate the terms of everything he does. He'll be a fantastic lawyer some day.

Sullen and anxious, he opens his eyes again and stares down at the edge of the train tracks. Perhaps, rather than a divine punishment, Hamilton is just Satan. That would at least be tidy, wouldn't it?

If only Burr could just hate him, that would be so much easier. That's one more thing he has to envy in Hamilton; Hamilton's feelings are absolute. If he hates someone, he hates them without reservation; he would have killed Charles Lee, if Washington hadn't specifically told him he couldn't. Hamilton doesn't do anything halfway.

How is it that they have so much in common, but they're still so different? So many things about himself, he's just always thought of as naturally arising from his circumstances. His parents died when he was young, the rest of his family followed soon after, so of course he grew up terrified of dying. Every single night, he couldn't stop himself reciting the same prayer over and over again-- _now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep._ _If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take._

But Hamilton grew up unafraid of death. He welcomes it. He seeks it out.

In some ways, they are almost perfect mirrors of each other; so much so that it seems impossible that it's just coincidence. Meeting once would be a coincidence, a funny happenstance. But their lives being so strangely wrapped up in each other the way they are, this can't just be chance. There has to be a reason for it.

He touches the center of his chest; he'll have a scar there for the rest of his life. The bullet just barely missed his lungs and his heart; if the soldier on the roof hadn't been such a rotten shot, he'd be dead. But for the grace of God.

He was always told that everything happens for a reason. It's all a part of God's plan. Burr was an orphan not because God was arbitrarily cruel, but because God wanted him to be strong. He had a plan for Aaron Burr, and that was why he survived while the people around him died. He wasn't tragic, or pathetic, or pitiful; he was special, and he was going to be something important some day. The notion had always comforted him. It was repeated enough times that even after he stopped thinking of himself as religious, it was still present, subconsciously, informing the way he thought about himself.

They would tell him the same thing if they were still around now. _God spared you_. The heat and chaos of Monmouth, the bullet in his chest; how could he have lived through this war if there was no reason for it? So many people died, why not him? How did that bullet not kill him?

The train jostles, and his forehead smacks hard against the window. He winces.

If there's a reason he's still alive, what is it?

The way he mirrors Hamilton bothers him. Hamilton thrives, endlessly productive, always moving forward. He started worse off than almost everyone else, but it hasn't stopped him; it hasn't even slowed him down. So with all they have in common, what is Burr but a worse version of Hamilton? Less successful, less popular, less productive. Could it be that he's meant to just be that? A foil for Hamilton, someone to compete with him enough that it pushes him to do better, but not so much that Hamilton ever really fails.

A sort of chill runs through his veins and his stomach twists as he realizes that that sounds about right. It makes sense. Hamilton is clearly destined for greatness; he is possibly the smartest person alive right now. He's a genius. Blessed.

But, also, fuck that. Burr can be better than Hamilton. He _is_ better than Hamilton, in lots of ways. Hamilton is impatient and reckless, charging forward without thinking. He doesn't plan ahead, he just does what he wants. Burr is calm, calculating, patient. He can diffuse situations without anyone getting killed. He can be in the same room as someone he dislikes without the situation devolving into screaming or a fistfight.

Eventually, Hamilton will burn himself out. It's inevitable; his intensity, stubbornness, ambition, pride, they're all useful but potentially deadly. He picks fights. He makes people mad. He charges straight ahead at a breakneck pace, but eventually it will break his neck.

His phone buzzes again. Probably Hamilton; the thought makes him feel queasy. Burr takes a deep breath, inhales and exhales slowly. He just needs to wait it out. If he just keeps waiting and doesn't keep _doing_ things, it'll be fine, eventually. He needs to stop being taken off guard by the effect Hamilton has on him. If he talks to him more in person, maybe it'll serve as a sort of exposure therapy. He'll get so used to Hamilton that being around him will be normal and easy and perfectly fine and he'll never be tempted to touch his face again. (That strikes him as perhaps a shade too optimistic, but foolish optimism is better than wallowing.)

He braces himself and checks his phone.

**New Texts (10)**

**A Hamilton  
** Really wish youd stayed, Eliza wants to meet you. we should have a double date sometime, i think that would be really fun. Also whats your girlfriends name? wheres she from? you didn't actually tell me anything about her and now im really curious. i cant facebook stalk her so you have to tell me EVERYTHING

 **A Hamilton  
** It was nice to see you even if it was only for a little while hopefully I will see you again soon... Everyones thinking the war's almost done. The British are exhausted & public opinion overseas has really soured on the whole thing apparently its getting hard to continue justifying the cost esp since their accomplishing pretty much nothing at all

 **A Hamilton  
** *they're oops im a little bit drunk? 

 **A Hamilton  
** Anyway I was hoping to catch up in person but I get you're busy lt colonel and all just wanted to say i miss you already

 **A Hamilton  
** Oh also angelica might be mad at you

 **A Hamilton  
** Sorry

 **A Schuyler  
** I CANT BELIEVE YOU

 **A Schuyler  
** YOU DIDNT EVEN SAY HI

 **A Schuyler  
** dammit burr if you were too gay to stay at the wedding you should have said something. Me and john have your back!! you could have just talked to us!!

 **A Schuyler  
** for fucks sake he wanted you to stay. why did you leave

He sighs.

 **To: A Schuyler  
** I left BECAUSE he wanted me to stay. Also, because I am a busy person.

 **A Schuyler  
** youre gonna have to deal with this eventually you know

 **A Schuyler  
** you cant just run away every time you experience an emotion

 

 **To: A Schuyler  
** Watch me.

 


	12. just you wait

Within a few weeks, they have internet back across the states. No one really knows what to do with it for a while; it takes time for things to settle back into normalcy. With the embargoes and the blackouts and the war, the states have been almost entirely cut off from the rest of the world. He's pretty sure they've been getting some news from their people in France, but there's only so much they could get to their people in France from here.

Now, the enormous amounts of information everyone's been meticulously recording on their phones and cameras floods onto the internet in one big lump. Heaps and heaps of data. Hamilton's wrists must be well and truly busted-- it's his job to type up all the records, reports, and speeches he wrote for Washington.

Of course, as usual, nothing can keep Hamilton from bothering him. He moves into a house with Eliza in New York, which in and of itself would be time consuming without the immense amount of work he has to do. Burr really doesn't know where Hamilton finds the time to be a bother. It's a real talent.

Burr is busy, too, but not as busy as Hamilton. No one on earth is as busy as Hamilton. Burr has started working on studying again-- he'd like to finish up law school as soon as possible and hit the ground running after the war. He doesn't want to spend much time doing nothing. A lot of what he learned will be useless, but he's hoping they won't hold that against him. With the internet back, he can pick up where he left off when the war started, which is incredibly useful. He prints out the things he wants to read, though; staring at the computer screen for too long hurts his eyes, now that he's used to not ever using his laptop.

“General Washington is still insisting I work from home,” Hamilton complains. Burr can hear the loud clatter of him typing continuously in the background, as ever. It seems that Hamilton sets his phone next to his computer while he works. “Not only is he refusing to let me fight, he won't even let me be _nearby._ It's ridiculous.”

“I like having you at home,” Eliza calls; she sounds far away. “I've already got Angelica and my dad to worry about, I don't want you out there as well.”

Hamilton's loud typing pauses for a second. “Eliza thinks I can't take care of myself,” he grumbles. He sounds like he's trying to come off as sarcastic, but Burr can tell he is genuinely annoyed. Hamilton's not very good at hiding or disguising his feelings. He really ought to get better at it, to be honest. “Betrayed by even my own wife.”

“I don't think you can take care of yourself, either,” Burr says. It's the truth. Hamilton is so manic and strange and constantly putting himself in mortal peril. He ought to be supervised at all times, to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid. He's certain that if Hamilton were left entirely to his own devices, it would be completely disastrous.

“Burr!” Hamilton sounds offended, and he starts typing faster. “I'm not a teenager any more, you know, I'm an _adult_. I'm fully capable of being responsible for my own life, and I don't appreciate--” He has a rant prepared, clearly. Burr wonders if he writes these down before he says them-- he recalls how Hamilton always used to tote around stacks of notebooks everywhere he went, always scribbling furiously. Maybe he prepared remarks in those.

“How are your wrists?” he asks pointedly.

“They're fine,” Hamilton says; he sounds deflated somewhat. He knows Burr is right. But he wants to keep arguing. “But it's none of your business how my wrists are, and it's my choice to do whatever I want with my wrists! Frankly, I think it's ridiculous that Washington--”

“ _General_ Washington,” Burr says, at the exact same time as Eliza does. He smiles.

“Whatever! I think it's ridiculous that his excellency refuses to put me in the line of fire but he's totally fine giving me all this work that is bad for my wrists. I mean-- my wrists are _fine,_ but it is the case that they are permanently damaged at this point, and why is that _better_ than me _maybe_ getting shot?”

“You can't die from carpal tunnel,” Burr says.

“Yeah, that's what he said,” Hamilton's voice goes sour and bitter and he keeps typing, but with unnecessary force. “It's _ridiculous._ We're at _war._ I can't stand idly by why people around me fight and die for something I believe in. I can't just sit here. I could help! We _need_ help!”

He has definitely had this conversation a few times-- with Washington, probably with Eliza, now with him. Burr sighs and rubs his eyes; what will convince him to back off? Will anything? Maybe an appeal to his massive ego.

“You're too important to die,” he says. “We need you alive after the war.”

“Well, _right now,_ we need more soldiers fighting, and I'm stuck here unpacking boxes and writing emails and transcribing shit-- he's giving me _busywork_ while you and Laurens are out there getting shot at!” Hamilton snaps.

“What, and you're _jealous?_ ”

Hamilton pauses, goes quiet for a moment again. “Yes,” he says.

This baffles him. There's something magnetic about the way Alexander refuses to be comprehensible to him. He has read so much of his writing, known him for so long, but he still feels sometimes like he just does not understand him at all. Alexander eludes him in a way most people do not. When he had nothing to lose-- just a scrawny orphan, no family, three friends-- he could sort of understand. But now? “ _Why?_ ”

Alexander slams his hand down on whatever surface the phone is sitting on. “Because no one-- no one fucking remembers the guy who did _paperwork_ until he died of _old age!_ No one cares!” He hears a chair scrape sharply against a floor as Alexander stands abruptly, hears his voice fade in and out as he paces. He leans his chin on his hand, fascinated. “You two-- with your _medals--_ ”

He just wants attention.

“It's not that-- it's-- I _know_ what I'm doing is important,” Alexander says, like he's repeating something he's said over and over again. “I know,” he says again. A repetitive self-soothing motion. Burr can almost see him running his hands through his hair.

He bites down on his index finger, staring at the phone. Alexander doesn't seem to notice his silence. “John got shot again, in the shoulder this time,” he says. John, not Laurens. “If I'd been there, I could've--”

Burr remembers him pacing, furious, downstairs in his dorm. _I could've done something._ His skinny wrists and his huge sweater, his angry pacing. “You could have taken the bullet for him?” he suggests, again, like he did then.

Alexander exhales loudly. “Yes.”

“That's very, ah...” He wants to say _romantic,_ but he hesitates. Eliza might still be around, and he still doesn't really know what's going on with that whole thing, and he definitely doesn't want to get involved in any way. “ _Grand_ of you.”

“I want to protect people,” Alexander says.

“People,” he repeats, raising his eyebrows.

“Oh, shut up,” He can hear Alexander smiling despite his annoyance, winding down from the angry rant. “Yes, _people,_ in general. I want to be useful.”

“Alexander, you know don't have to die to be useful,” Burr says quietly. “Why do you _want_ to?”

Alexander sighs, and he hears him sit down again. There's a short strange moment, where they just sit quietly, and he hears Alexander taking deep breaths, composing himself. Burr's glad it's a phone conversation and not one in person, because he feels a strong urge to reach out to him.

When he speaks again, he's not distressed any more. Instead, his voice is low and teasing and it makes Burr's shoulders tense. “It's Alexander again, huh?”

He winces at the sudden rush of embarrassment, but keeps his voice cool and steady. “For now. Don't change the subject.”

“I wish you'd call me Alexander more,” he says. He's very determined to keep the subject changed, isn't he? “I suppose it would be pointless to ask you to explain _why_ sometimes I'm Alexander and sometimes I'm Hamilton.”

“Yes, it would.”

“I'll get you to tell me someday.”

“No, you won't.”

 

* * *

 

 

He never stays in one place for long. He gets moved back up to Philadelphia, and he wonders if Hamilton had anything to do with it-- there's not much to do in Philadelphia, so he'll be back to helping with paperwork and information and communications for a long while, all of which he can do at Theo's place.

“You have to stay with me, of course,” Theo says, when he tells her. “Come by as soon as you can. I've missed you.”

So he does, as soon as he can. Outside her building, he texts her while he smokes a cigarette to stop his hands shaking. She hates the smell of cigarette smoke, but there's not much he can do about that. He supposes he could quit smoking, if he really wanted to do something about it. He scrolls through his Twitter feed-- he's still getting used to it existing, and keeps losing track of it.

 **@laurensj ****  
** yo psa south carolina sucks

 **@lancelotte ****  
** @laurensj LOL you are not allowed to say that!! you're important now. you must love all states equally

 **@laurensj ****  
** @lancelotte fine then the state is just as good as all the other ones its just that EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN SOUTH CAROLINA sucks

 **@laurensj ****  
** @lancelotte youre a bigshot now get me tf out of here

 **@laurensj ****  
** @gwashington i hate the citizens of south carolina can i please be done here

 **@lancelotte ****  
** @laurensj you need to c h i l l ! just hang in there the redcoats are on their last legs

 **@lancelotte ****  
** @laurensj PS: is last legs the right phrase ??

 **@Gwashington ✔  
** @Laurensj Think of it as a learning experience. It's important to go outside your comfort zone :)

 **@laurensj ****  
** @gwashington alex thats not helpful you know what would be helpful is if you would CALL ME

(Hamilton, of course, in addition to digitizing everything under the sun, has been running General Washington's social media. Somewhat poorly. He does his best, but really everyone can tell when it's him and when it's the man himself.)

 **@laurensj ****  
** @eliiiiza tell your husband to call me please?? im losing my mind here & need to talk to someone

 **@aaronburr ****  
** @laurensj You can always talk to me

 **@laurensj ****  
** @aaronburr im not that desperate yet

He rolls his eyes and follows Eliza-- he didn't know she had a Twitter-- then drops his cigarette on the sidewalk and grinds it under his heel. Laurens really shouldn't be shit-talking on Twitter any more, given that he's a decorated war hero now, but it's not like anyone can stop him.

Theo's apartment building is just as peacefully normal on the inside as ever. It feels strange, being in this place that's so... untouched. So few things have remained unscathed, so it's nice to be back where things are normal. It's strange to think that the war is almost over, that he's made it out and things will be normal again.

He raps three times on Theo's door and adjusts his bag on his shoulder. It's been a while since he's seen her. Hopefully she hasn't lost interest in him.

The door opens, and the smile on Theo's face takes the breath right out of his lungs. “Aaron,” she says, and nothing else really matters for a minute. God, she's beautiful. She takes his hands and kisses him gently, warm and gentle and familiar.

“Hi,” he murmurs, pressing his forehead against hers. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.” They stand there like that for a moment-- she looks into his eyes, smiling, and there's absolutely no place he would rather be. Just for a second, everything feels fine. He doesn't need to do anything, or manage anything; he just stands there, holding her soft hands, and feels more content than he has in a long time. He loves this girl.

“Come in,” She steps back, still smiling at him, and nods at the door to her apartment. “I have a surprise for you.”

“I'm not terribly fond of surprises,” he says, letting her pull him into her apartment. Surprises are rarely good. He would much rather know what to expect. When people intentionally surprise him, they deny him the opportunity to compose a reaction, and then he runs the risk of giving them the wrong reaction. It's unpleasant.

“You'll like mine,” Theo says firmly. There's not much to say to that, so he lets her drag him into her kitchen. Everything looks about the same as it was last time he was here; it's tidy and delightfully well-organized. She gestures at the counter, letting go of his hands to do so. “I bought your terrible coffee for you.”

As far as surprises go, that one's not terribly impressive. It's nice, but it's hardly exciting. He puts his bag down next to the kitchen table and opens his mouth to tell her that her surprise isn't very good, but then she has dropped to one knee and pulled out a ring.

“I was hoping you would marry me,” she says, and brushes hair out of her face.

He freezes, and feels the distinctly strange sensation of _expecting_ to panic without actually panicking. He feels fine, actually. Surprised, certainly, but not nearly as terrified or uncomfortable as he would have thought he would. It would be more proper to wait, he thinks. They haven't been together for long enough that he would consider proposing to her, but not because he doesn't like her. It's just better to wait before one does anything like this. You have to be sure.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and it reminds him of Hamilton, and he feels suddenly very ill. He loves Theo. He does want to marry her. Why wouldn't he? She's perfect; she's smart, and quiet, and tidy, and she bought his coffee for him even though she hates it. She is nice to him, and she makes him feel calm and safe and happy.

He can't banish the thought of Hamilton's scrawny fucked-up wrists and his manic brown eyes and his awful hair. She makes him happy. Why can't he just be happy? She loves him. He loves her. Hamilton makes him absolutely miserable. But Theo looks up at him, smiling, waiting for his answer, and all he can think about is Hamilton. Why does Hamilton have to ruin everything, even when he's not here?

He has to say no, doesn't he? If he isn't sure, he shouldn't rush into a decision. If he isn't completely committed, he can't say yes. It would be wrong. Potentially even cruel. He should wait and figure things out. He should wait, and make sure that this will work out.

On the other hand, no. He shouldn't wait. This Hamilton thing-- it's not the same as his feelings for Theo. If he waits, that's the same as admitting something very particular, isn't it? It means saying that his relationship with Hamilton could somehow interfere with his relationship with Theo, which of course it couldn't possibly. It's saying that his feelings about Hamilton are somehow in direct competition with his feelings for Theo. Which, again, can't possibly be the case. He is in love with Theodosia. He is not in love with Alexander Hamilton.

Never mind that he can still feel the imprint of Alexander's fingers on his wrist, never mind the ache in his chest every time he hears his voice.

They really should wait to get married. For-- he doesn't know how long. However long it takes for him to be sure? It's been so long already. What if he's never sure? If he says they should wait, she'll want to know why and he'll have to lie and that will be a whole other problem. If he says _let me think about it_ , it'll sound like he doesn't like her as much as she likes him. He can't let that happen.

He's trapped. He has to make a decision. He says, “Of course I'll marry you.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay !! ;;;;;;;;;; i have 3 research papers due soon for finals and im so......... stressed.............. i wanted to get through this chapter fast because theres more interesting stuff coming up but instead i got stressed and it took longer than usual?? ergh............................


	13. the world turned upside down

Yorktown, Virginia. 2023.

“Eliza, _please,_ ” Hamilton says. “This is-- Eliza, would you just--”

Feet propped up on the table in front of him, Burr bites off a corner of one of the shortbread cookies Theo packed for him. Hamilton is across the room, pacing back and forth, defensive and exasperated, his phone pressed against his ear as it has been for almost half an hour now. “I'll be fine!” he insists, for the tenth time.

Rather unceremoniously and without permission, Lafayette reaches into his bag of cookies, takes one, then sits down next to him. His boots hit the table with a loud _thunk_. “Incredible,” he says. “They are still fighting.”

“Good to see you, too, Marquis de Lafayette. Yes, sir, I've been well. Why, yes, sir, you _may_ have one of these shortbread cookies that my wife made for me,” Burr says dryly, narrowing his eyes at Lafayette. Lafayette pops the cookie into his mouth and makes a face at him. “You immigrants have terrible manners.”

“You Americans have terrible everything," Lafayette says primly.

“This is an incredible opportunity!” Hamilton says loudly. “I'm not going to-- yes-- yes, Eliza, I didn't _forget_ that you're pregnant!”

Burr inhales sharply and chokes on his cookie. _Pregnant?_ He hadn't heard. How did Hamilton not tell him that? Was he keeping it a secret? Why would he do that?

“I see he hadn't told you,” Lafayette says, reaching over to take another cookie. Burr smacks his wrist; Lafayette hits him in the chin and takes two cookies. “Have you told him you didn't invite him to your wedding?”

“Hmm.” Burr puts a cookie in his mouth to avoid answering. Lafayette snorts. No one was invited to their wedding-- just the two of them and the official in Town Hall-- but that won't matter to Hamilton. He leans further back in his chair, balancing it on its two back legs. This is a safe distance, he thinks. The judgement-clouding pain-inducing effect Hamilton's presence has on him is barely noticeable from this side of the room.

The argument apparently winds down; Hamilton stops shouting, and his pacing slows to a halt. When he finally hangs up, he sighs, and smooths his hand over his hair, then turns to look at Burr. He smiles. Maybe he's not far away enough yet; his chest constricts, his heart skips a beat. Awful. “Aaron Burr, sir!” he says, walking straight towards him. “Good to see you!”

Burr shoves his bag of cookies into his pocket and stands up, forcing a smile. “Hamilton,” he says. Hamilton doesn't hug him, thank God, just claps him on the arm and gives him a very tired smile.

“Sorry about that,” he says, gesturing with his phone. “Eliza's worried. You know how it is, right?”

He doesn't. Theo worries about him, but they don't _fight_ about it. They don't fight about anything. If they have a problem, they talk about it at a regular speaking volume like sensible people. “Sure,” he says. Hamilton's eyes flick to Burr's hand, and any chance at having a regular speaking volume conversation with him goes out the window.

“Hang on,” he says, and grabs his hand. Every one of Burr's muscles locks up. He stops breathing.

“Oh, good,” Lafayette says.

“You got _married?_ ” Hamilton's voice rises in volume and pitch with every word. Burr tries to tug his hand away, but Hamilton hangs onto it harder. He stares up at him, more intensely hurt and distressed than he has any right to look, and Burr feels very painfully aware of Lafayette watching this whole thing. “You got married and you didn't _tell me?_ I mean-- God, Burr, you didn't even _tell_ me, let alone invite me!”

“It was a last-minute sort of decision,” Burr says stiffly. “Nobody was invited.”

Predictably, this doesn't help. Hamilton gets more agitated. “You don't make last-minute decisions!”

He's sure he had a perfectly good explanation at some point, but now that Hamilton is staring up at him like he's murdered his dog it's difficult to articulate what it was. He takes a breath, tries not to make it obvious that he feels like he's drowning. “Neither of us wanted to make a big production of it, and we've already been together so long, we figured, why not just get it over with,” he says.

“You still haven't even introduced me to her!”

“That's neither here nor there,” Burr says. Hamilton looks even more pissed off and continues to hold onto his hand. It's making him twitchy and his hand is uncomfortably warm and he needs to fix this before it becomes a serious problem. Get it together, Burr. “Hamilton, we didn't have a ceremony, it was literally just the two of us. If we'd had a big to-do, you would have been invited.”

“Of course I would have!” Hamilton snaps. He's ever so slightly less upset, but still upset. If he would just let go, it would be much easier to think clearly and figure out what the hell is his problem and then he could fix this.

“You can meet her after the war's done,” Burr says, hoping more vague assurances will help. “There just hasn't been time. You know that. I still haven't met Eliza.”

“Yes, well,” Hamilton finally lets go of his hand. His expression is still strangely distressed, but he's taking deep breaths and combing his hands through his hair and calming down. “Really, Burr. You didn't even tell me.”

“I posted about it on Twitter,” he says, and it sounds so ridiculously feeble that Hamilton actually laughs. Just a small reluctant laugh, but a laugh nonetheless.

“You're the worst. I'm glad you're here.”

 

* * *

 

“This forest is _full_ of trees,” Burr hisses.

Hamilton raises his eyebrows at him. It's not dark enough yet that he can't see him making faces. Unfortunately. “That's a really astute observation, Burr. Nice one.”

“It is full of _other trees,_ ” he hisses. Hamilton has chosen, for some God damn reason, the tree right next to Burr's. “Trees _further away from me._ ”

“I need to be able to see what's going on,” Hamilton whispers. “It's not my fault you picked a good tree.”

“For God's sake,” Burr presses his back flat against the tree and sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. He can't possibly be expected to deal with this. It's absolutely horrendous. Hamilton is right next to him, with his face and his bad attitude. How is he supposed to concentrate? “You're distracting.”

“Huh,” Hamilton says, and nothing else. Burr glares at him; he's giving him an unsettlingly appraising look, and he does not appreciate it.

He _could_ just go find another tree, just to avoid Hamilton, but he's really not supposed to. They're supposed to be staying very still and very quiet. Why does Hamilton have to be _here?_ There's so many other places he could be. This whole operation is complicated and spread out and there is no good reason why Hamilton had to pick _this specific tree._ Burr fishes a cigarette out of his pocket and ignores the look Hamilton gives him.

Hamilton manages to stay quiet for almost an entire minute before he whispers, “Didn't you say you were going to quit?”

“I'm working on it,” Burr mutters. He's not working on it very _hard,_ but he is working on it. Sort of. Theo strongly suggested that he work on it, so he's trying. It was going fine, until just now. “Being around you makes it difficult.”

“Huh,” Hamilton says again. It's infuriating. Burr glares at him and taps ash off the cigarette with unnecessary force. It wouldn't have sounded _huh-_ worthy if Hamilton had just responded normally, but now it's hanging in the air and it sounds weird and he can't fix it.

After that, Hamilton is quiet for a while. Burr decides to pretend he's not there at all, and just focus on the plan. Killing people is a pretty solid distraction. They have to be on them enough that they're exhausted, worn down, but not so much that they give away their positions. It's a little difficult to pretend Hamilton's not there when he's muttering to people over the radio almost constantly, but he does his best.

It works, for a while. But with Hamilton it's only ever a while. A few hours in, they're both sitting on the ground, and Hamilton says, “Listen, Burr, if we die tonight--”

“Shut up.”

He's not interested in listening to Hamilton be weird and grand and dramatic right now. For one thing, they're going to be fine. For another thing, they're supposed to be quiet, especially when there's a lull in the gunfire and they know the redcoats are looking for them.

“I'm serious,” Hamilton says, and he sounds serious. Burr looks at him, which is as much of a mistake as it ever is. His wide brown eyes are burning with his unique brand of manic intensity and Burr really wishes he wouldn't look at him like that. “If we die tonight, which we definitely could--”

“Only if you keep talking,” Burr mutters. The forest is dead quiet. The most quietly they can speak still feels too loud.

“Would you _stop_ interrupting me?”

A gunshot cracks through the quiet and hits a tree about ten feet to their left. Too close. “See?” Burr hisses.

“If we die tonight, there's something I want to tell you,” Hamilton drops his voice to a whisper, but stubbornly continues to talk. “Just. Like. Sit there and shut up for two seconds.”

Now he _really_ doesn't want to hear it. If he's being this stubborn about it, it's at least something he thinks is important, and if it's important but he hasn't said it before now-- this seems dangerous. They're getting into that weird territory where Alexander gets Burr's guard down and steals a moment of intimacy. He probably thinks Burr isn't noticing how he's inching closer, but it's really not that subtle. Burr wants to lean away. He doesn't.

“We're going to be _fine_ , Alexander,” Burr hisses.

Alexander looks at him, shoulders squared, jaw set, and Burr knows there's no stopping him. He's impossible to rein in when he's like this. Panic creeps up his spine; he has a very bad feeling about where this is going. “You know I'm a very straightforward person,” he says, determinedly, “and I normally would have said this sooner, but--”

The panic intensifies. He _can't._ He claps his hand over Alexander's mouth, smacking his head hard against the tree trunk. Alexander looks surprised and offended, and attempts to wrench his arm away. It doesn't work. “Whatever it is you're trying to say,” Burr hisses, unable to stop the panic from tinging his voice with a sense of urgency, “ _Now is not the time._ ”

Alexander stares at him, apparently baffled. Burr keeps his hand on his mouth. He's not gonna let him finish the thought, and he's not gonna take his hand away until Alexander gives some indication he's not going to say anything else.

After a bit more struggling and muffled complaining noises, Alexander sighs and rolls his eyes and throws up his hands. Burr takes his hand away hesitantly, and Alexander says, “Has anyone ever told you that you're heinously rude?”

“Only you,” Burr sits down and crosses his arms over his chest to disguise the fact that he's shaking. “Now shut up before you get us both shot.”

“If we actually die, I'm going to come back as a ghost because of you,” Alexander whispers.

“If we die, I'm not going to come back as a ghost specifically so that I don't have to deal with your overdramatic ass,” Burr whispers back.

“I'm not overdramatic, you're _underdramatic_ ,” Alexander grumbles.

“We're trying to win a war against the biggest empire in human history, Alexander,” he hisses. “We don't have time for your nonsense.”

Alexander looks away. Burr looks away, too. They sit in uncomfortable silence. He's still shaking and panicky, but he can't show it. That was a close call. He's not sure what Alexander was going to say, except he is, except he's not. He can't think about it. Not even a little bit. Not that it matters, because there is absolutely no way it could possibly be that thing he wasn't thinking about.

Deep breaths, Burr. Keep it together. Just a few more hours. He stares up at the trees; the leaves block any view he would have had of the sky, but that's fine. He just doesn't want to look at the tangled mess of scrawny manic energy sitting next to him. Everything hurts. It's like being run through a wood chipper, except he doesn't get to die. Why can't Alexander just leave him be? Why can't he at least stay angry with him for more than a few hours so he can catch a break for once?

He desperately wants to tell him to finish the thought and tell him whatever it was he was going to say. But that would ruin everything. There is this distance he has to maintain, these boundaries that can't be crossed. Every time he sees him the distance gets smaller, and he hates it.

“You called me Alexander again,” Alexander says. It feels accusatory, and Burr honestly can't tell how he's meant to take it. He steals a glance at him; Alexander is still not looking at him. Unreadable. The moonlight trickling in from between the leaves makes him look ethereal. He is strange and sharp and awful, and now that Burr has looked he can't look at anything else.

“Yeah,” he says.

“You know--” Alexander cuts himself off and sighs, rubbing his eye tiredly. “Never mind. I will never understand you.”

As Burr looks at him-- all rough edges and long eyelashes, the light making the shadows under his eyes a thousand times worse-- a thought echoes, small and sharp and urgent: _What do you want, Burr?_ Can he really keep putting off doing anything? Can things really stay the same? At this point, it feels like he's only delaying the inevitable. What's the point in continuing to torture himself? Maybe he should just rip off the bandaid and say something.

Alexander turns his head and looks at him, and words stick in his throat. He says, “Hgghhh.”

“Good grief, Burr,” Alexander laughs softly, nudges his side and gives him a pitying sort of grin. “Heart on the sleeve doesn't suit you. Get it together, soldier.”

He knows.

 

* * *

 

**@lionskincloak  
** WE WON

**@lancelotte  
** WE WON

**@laurensj  
** WE WON!!

**@lionskincloak  
** I CAN FINALLY STOP PRETENDING TO LIKE THESE LOYALIST ASSHOLES

**@lancelotte  
** #RAISEAGLASS

**@laurensj  
** @lancelotte we gotta get TRASHED before you go back to france!! #raiseaglass

**@laurensj  
** @lancelotte @lionskincloak the #squad can finally be reunited!!!

**@lancelotte  
** @laurensj @lionskincloak Yes ! We must! How soon will you be in NY ?

**@laurensj  
** @lancelotte @lionskincloak ughhhh i don't know but asap. Can't wait to get out of SC

 


	14. death doesn't discriminate

 “Do you _really_ have to stay down there?” Alexander says. John sighs and sinks lower in his chair. It's difficult to say no to him when he's pleading like that. Especially since he's been here so long already. If he's not careful, Alex will wheedle him into deserting.

“I really do,” he says. “The redcoats need to be supervised until they're really gone. We can't let our guards down just yet. Supposedly. Orders are orders, Alex.”

“It's so _stupid_ , though. We need you to help build the nation,” Alexander has been insisting this for weeks, now. “You have to get your ass up here so we can do governmental things.”

“I told you, Alex, I'm not suited to politics.”

“Bullshit. You're literally perfect, and being a perfect human being means you have a moral obligation to govern and keep all the dumbasses in line. What makes you think you're not suited to politics? You're smart and beautiful and everyone loves you,” John flushes, which is actually really unpleasant because he's already so warm. All the windows are open, and there's two fans in his room, but it doesn't help with the humidity. Everything is damp and sticky. His phone feels too hot on his palm and his ear, but he can't put it on speaker. Not after last time. “Washington thinks you're wonderful. We can be in charge of things together. It'll be great!”

He sighs again. “Alex, come on, dial it back a bit.”

“Come on!” Alex, as usual, does not dial it back a bit. He is physically incapable of _dialing it back a bit_ , and it was foolish of John to ask.“We'll keep changing the world together. We can make a real difference, now! A _permanent_ difference. We can write shit into _law,_ man. Seriously, there's no one I'd rather see in charge than you,” he says. “New York's where it's all happening, John. You gotta get up here.”

It seems that Alex has his career planned out for him. What a ridiculous asshole. He misses him so much. There's nowhere he'd rather be than in New York, and he hates that he has to stay. But he has to. “You know I'll be there as soon as I can,” he says, somewhat miserably.

“Not soon enough,” Alex murmurs. The tenderness in his voice takes his breath away. “I miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” he says softly. “I'll be there soon.”

 

* * *

 

Fucking redcoats and their _schemes._ Their spies down here are still in place, just in case, but he'd assumed he wouldn't be hearing anything from them ever again. Not so much luck. Some assholes are planning to bomb Charlestown before they leave. Never mind that they'd be disobeying orders from their beloved king. Apparently redcoats really don't care about anything besides being spiteful garbage.

Of course, John can't just let them be. “This is the last thing, though,” he assures Alexander. “After I take care of this, I should be good to go. I'll have gone above and beyond the call of duty like three times over.”

“You should have been up here ages ago.” Alexander huffs. “They better let you up. Otherwise, I swear to God, I will forge Washington's signature and get you up here myself.”

He laughs. “Well, definitely don't do that. Listen, Alex, I need to go. I'm headed out tomorrow, I'll talk to you soon.”

“Knock 'em dead, hero,” Alexander says fondly. “I love you.”

He leans against the wall and smiles. “I love you, too,” he says.

 

* * *

 

Gunshots. An ambush.

He only has a second to react, and he freezes. A bullet hits him in the neck.

 

* * *

 

Eliza lowers the phone, feeling dazed and hollow. “Alexander,” she says quietly. He looks up from his laptop, smiling; when he sees her face, his expression shifts quickly into concern. He stands up.

“Eliza, what's wrong?”

There's no good way to say it. Still reeling herself, she can't think how to soften the blow. “John Laurens is dead,” she says shakily. Alexander goes very still, frozen in place. He stares at her, blinks slowly, and does not move. He isn't even breathing. She doesn't know what to do, what to say. Unsteady on her feet, she tightens her grip on the phone and adds, unhelpfully, “He was shot.”

“Okay,” he says-- just two short syllables, flat and clipped. He combs both hands through his hair and turns, eyes distant and clouded. For a moment, they stand in the heaviest silence she has ever felt in her life.

Then Alexander punches the wall so hard he breaks his hand.

 

* * *

 

Four days after the attack in South Carolina, Burr gets a call from Angelica. “Haven't heard from you in a while, Miss Schuyler,” he says cheerfully. He's been cheerful lately. Nobody's shooting at him, Hamilton hasn't bothered him in days, and he gets to spend as much time with his wife as he wants. “I suppose you've been busy celebrating?”

“Burr, we need your help,” she says. She sounds awful, which is different. Pretty much everyone is in a wonderful mood, exhilerated and optimistic. She sounds exhausted and upset. His good mood fades, and then disappears entirely when she clears her throat and clarifies: “It's, um. Alexander.”

He scowls. Of course it's Alexander. What else could it possibly be this time? “What's he done?”

“Laurens is dead.”

It takes him a moment to process that. “Dead,” he repeats numbly. Just to be sure he hasn't misheard.

“Yeah. The South Carolina thing. They're still waiting to release the names to the public, but, yeah. He got shot.”

It feels... fake. Wrong, somehow. He'd never considered that Laurens might die; Alexander, sure, but not Laurens. Maybe it was because he didn't know him. They weren't friends, exactly, but they were almost friends. They have mutual friends. He was always Alexander's friend. Tangential, but constant. He's always been there, a sort of vague presence that he knows but doesn't know-- _you know, Laurens says, I was talking to Laurens the other day and, have you heard about Laurens and his new haircut--_ he's never had a conversation with Alexander where Alexander managed to resist mentioning Laurens. Laurens has always just been a sort of fact about the world, a fixed presence just out of reach. Not quite a friend.

He's gone, and Alexander's still here. Another casualty to the master plan.

Angelica presses on, talking very fast, probably to cover the fact that she's upset. “Alexander is taking it exceptionally poorly. He's devastated. He isn't really talking to anyone, or doing anything at all besides work. He hasn't eaten or slept in days. Eliza's been pestering him, I've been pestering him, but he just waves us off. Also...” She trails off, hesitant.

God. What more is there? What did Alexander _do?_ “Also?” he prompts.

“He broke his hand. Eliza says he... punched the wall. And broke it. His hand, I mean. The wall is fine.”

He snorts, then holds the phone away from him so that she can't hear him laugh. He composes himself, and puts the phone back to his ear. “Oh, dear,” he says.

“You don't sound very upset.”

“I'm exactly the appropriate amount of upset,” he says. “Why did you call me?”

“Because,” She sounds annoyed at him. “He's not listening to me or Eliza, and maybe he'll listen to you.”

Of course. Of course it's his problem, now. He can feel a headache coming on already. But it's not like he can say _no._ Alexander needs someone to knock some sense into him. Not eating or sleeping, indeed. His poor wife. He gets up from his desk to start packing. Without Laurens, Alexander really doesn't have that many friends.

He's going, of course, but he's not happy about it. This shouldn't be his job. Alexander needs more friends. “Angelica, you know I'm a genius, right?”

She sighs. “Yeah, I think I've heard you mention it once or maybe twenty times.”

“I've been a college student since I was thirteen.”

“If it's taking you that long to finish, I gotta say, you must not be that smart.”

“I took a break.”

“Okay, Burr.”

“I'm just saying, I'm a little overqualified for babysitting,” he says, shoving some shirts into his travel bag. Checks his watch. Theo will be back soon. He'll check with her, check the trains. He can be up there late tonight. Really late, but that's fine. Alexander's not sleeping anyway.

“He's grieving, try not to be nasty to him,” Angelica says. She really does sound exhausted. She shouldn't have had to go over there. She's grieving, too, and she's not accustomed to loss the way Alexander is. She needs to sleep.

“I've never been nasty to anyone,” he says. “You know I'm a war hero, right?”

“He's sleep-deprived and he's lost someone really important to him. We need you to get him to eat something and sleep, not kick his ass.”

She's pleading with him, now, but he's not easily swayed by appeals to pity. Especially not when it comes to people like Alexander, who is being a selfish prick. Angelica and Eliza shouldn't have to try to manage him when he's punching walls and killing himself. That's not their job, and it's not fair. He rummages in his drawers, looking for cigarettes. He's making progress on quitting, so he doesn't keep them in his coat pocket any more.

“I'll only kick his ass a little bit. In a nice way,” he says. He can't find any cigarettes. He'll have to get some on the way.

“Burr--”

“Angelica, take a break. Leave him be, take care of yourself and your sister. Go get...” What's something nice that Angelica likes? He can't think of anything. “I don't know, a cake. He'll just make you more miserable. I'll be there as soon as I can, and I'll get him sorted out.”

“Okay,” she says reluctantly. “You'd better not make this worse.”

He's about to hang up, but then it occurs to him that this is the first time he'll be meeting Eliza, and considering the circumstances... “Angelica, I'm gonna need you to tell me what the hell was going on with Laurens and Alexander and Eliza.”

“It's complicated.”

That's absolutely not the answer he was hoping for. _It's complicated,_ indeed. Shit. Maybe she doesn't know. She would kill for Eliza-- what if Alexander lied to her? To keep her from having to choose between the two of them? God, this is not a good situation to get involved in. He'll have to toe a pretty careful line. It'll be easier to stay out of whatever this mess is if he knows what not to say.

“It's not complicated any more, he's dead,” he says flatly. “Did she know about the thing?”

“You're gonna have to be a bit more delicate than that with him. He's fragile.”

“Sure he is. Stop dodging the question, it's important that I know what Eliza knows.”

Angelica sighs again. “Can we talk about it in person when you get here? I'll meet you at the train station or something.”

He rolls his eyes. This is so dramatic. This is why he didn't pry into it earlier. “Fine,” he says. “But you have to buy me coffee.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey you know whats sad. here's the end of the last letter hamilton ever wrote john laurens IRL-- it was sent august 15th and laurens died on the 27th. the angst is real................
> 
> "Peace made, My Dear friend, a new scene opens. The object then will be to make our independence a blessing. To do this we must secure our union on solid foundations; an herculean task and to effect which mountains of prejudice must be levelled!  
> It requires all the virtue and all the abilities of the Country. Quit your sword my friend, put on the toga, come to Congress. We know each others sentiments, our views are the same: we have fought side by side to make America free, let us hand in hand struggle to make her happy.  
> [...]  
> Yrs for ever  
> A Hamilton"
> 
> yrs for ever!!!!!!!!!! quit your sword my friend!! GEEZ!!
> 
> also i have a fic inspiration blog for this fic if that's something anyone's interested in besides me?? its kind of lame....... but i like it......... ;;;;;;; http://ieiahpf.tumblr.com/


	15. living is harder

“So here's the deal,” Angelica says, as soon as he's off the train and within earshot.

It is three in the morning, and he has a pounding headache. He squints at her-- the lights in the train station sting his eyes-- and thinks that she looks awful. She's worried, and tired, and her hair is a mess. He sticks out his hand and says, “Coffee.”

She hands him a cup of lukewarm coffee. Fabulous. He takes a sip and gestures at her to continue as they walk out of the train station. “Eliza knows that they dated in college,” She starts talking very quickly, sounding exceptionally urgent. “She knows that they're still-- they _were_ still close, and she really liked John, so she wasn't _bothered._ And Alexander was always pretty vague on how serious he was about him, and-- I mean, he's serious about everything, but it seemed-- to _us_ , anyway-- like he was really serious about being John's _friend_ and not terribly serious about their other thing.”

The coffee is disgusting. There's a lot of milk and sugar in it. “So, Eliza thinks they were friends.”

“Pretty much. She doesn't know how bad John had it for Alex.”

Now that he's involved in this drama he's been trying to stay out of, he might as well poke around and get as much information as he can. “It's unusual for you to keep something like that from her, isn't it?”

“As far as I knew, Alexander was over him,” she says. She crosses her arms over her chest and looks away, brow furrowed. She looks more than a little bit guilty. “Eliza liked John a lot, Burr. And I really thought that... I thought it wasn't serious, on Alex's end.”

“Have you _met_ Alexander?”

She doesn't look at him. “Honestly, Burr, John was convinced Alex thought of him as a very close friend, and that's how Alex presented it to me, so I believed them.”

He snorts; when she gives him an offended look, he says, “I'm pretty sure they were having sex on the regular, Angelica.”

“I don't know!” She throws her hands in the air in helpless frustration. “He really loves Eliza a lot, and I didn't want to think he would have a serious thing with anyone else. I mean-- Alexander grew up in a barn or-- or a shack or something! He'd never had friends before college, he doesn't know about being appropriate!”

“Is that what they do with orphans in the Carribean nowadays? Put them in shacks?” Burr sips his coffee and arches his eyebrows at her. She keeps glaring at the sidewalk ahead of them. Not even a hint of a smile. He sighs and takes a cigarette out of the new pack in his back pocket. “Tough crowd. Did Eliza know they were having sex?”

“I don't think so. If she knew, she never said anything, and it didn't bother her.” She isn't walking straight; she's listing a little bit to the right, and keeps nudging his side. She doesn't seem to notice, either, which is more concerning. She goes quiet for a moment. He lights his cigarette.

“This is so fucked up,” she says quietly. “I just-- I can't believe he's just _dead._ You know?”

He shrugs. “Shit happens. People die.”

“You have an absolutely terrible bedside manner,” She wipes at her eyes with the heels of her palms. “I thought you liked him.”

She thinks he's heartless. How annoying. He exhales smoke at the sky. The light pollution is ramping up again. He can just barely see a few especially bright stars. “I liked him fine,” he says. “I'm sorry that I'm not very comforting.”

He's not heartless. It's not like he's happy Laurens is dead. But there's not much for him to grieve for. Laurens wasn't his friend. If he's going to start mourning the loss of every single wasted life, every genius kid shot in the neck, every so-and-so he was friendly with, there's a long line ahead of Laurens. It has been a long war.

Mourning is exhausting, and he's done quite enough of it for one lifetime. So has Alexander. It's all very well and good for people like Angelica to be shaken up-- her family is very much alive, her life remarkably free of tragedy. Alexander has no excuse.  
  


* * *

 

The door opens before Angelica's touched it, and there's Eliza. She's small, and very pretty, and she looks even worse than Angelica. “Aaron Burr, in the flesh,” she says, extending her hand with a tired smile. “It's nice to finally meet you.”

“You as well. I wish it were under better circumstances.” He smiles, shakes her hand, and they step inside. The Hamiltons have a nice home; small, and a bit cluttered, but in a homey way. There's books everywhere, in stacks on shelves and tables and chairs.

“Can I get you some tea?” Eliza fidgets nervously, her voice pitched higher than he's heard it over the phone. “Or a sandwich, maybe?”

“I'm fine, thank you,” he says, as soothingly as he can manage. Angelica wraps her arm around Eliza's shoulder and hugs her close.

“Eliza, you don't need to be a hostess right now,” she murmurs.

He inclines his head and adds, “I couldn't possibly ask for anything, especially at this hour, ma'am.”

“Please, call me Eliza,” She glances at the top of the stairs. “Alexander is upstairs, in his study. He hasn't left in days.”

He has everyone so worried about him. Burr refrains from scowling, but only because he thinks he ought to be as kind to Eliza as he can manage. It's generally best to be polite to people when you show up at their house in the middle of the night, especially if they're in distress at the time. “I'll head up there, then. You two can rest, I'll at the very least make sure he doesn't hurt himself.”

“At least let me take your bag to the guest room.” She seems to be very keen on feeling useful. It's a terrible feeling, being unable to help the people you love. He can see into the kitchen from the entryway, and it looks absolutely spotless. Seems that she's a nervous cleaner; he is, as well.

“I'll keep it with me for now, if that's alright. Please, Eliza, you should rest.”

Angelica steers her towards the stairs, and Burr follows. “He's here to be helpful, Eliza, let him lug his own bag around,” Angelica says. “You need to focus on taking care of yourself.”

Eliza sighs. “I suppose,” She looks over her shoulder at Burr and points to one of the doors in the upstairs hallway. “Alexander's in there. We must have a proper conversation tomorrow, when I'm more fit for conversation, Aaron. I'll make breakfast.”

“Oh, no,” He waves his hand dismissively. “I'm afraid I must insist that you allow me to cook for you. It's the least I can do to make up for the intrusion on your hospitality.”

She protests, but Angelica continues dragging her down the hall into what is presumably her bedroom. “Bed! Now!” she says, and then shuts the door, leaving Burr alone in the hallway.

It's a nice hallway. The floor is carpeted and the walls have framed family photographs hanging up all over the place. The vast majority appear to be the Schuylers, but one next to Alexander's office grabs his attention. Not that he's stalling or anything. Unlike every other picture on the wall, this one was cut out from a newspaper; it's grainy black-and-white on yellowing wrinkled paper. A very young boy-- dark eyes, skinny wrists-- with his mother, both smiling. Underneath it is a caption: _8-year-old spelling bee Champion Alexander Faucette-Hamilton and his mother Rachel._

It occurs to him that he actually knows remarkably little about Alexander, still, even now. It feels strange, to think about it like that; they've known each other for so long. He shrugs it off and opens the door to Alexander's study without knocking.

It is dark in here. The only light comes from a small desk lamp and Alexander's laptop. Alexander is hunched over his desk, typing with one hand. His right hand-- the broken one-- is in a cast, and he's resting it on the desk next to his computer. He doesn't look up when Burr walks in, or when he closes the door behind him.

“Hey,” Burr says, and turns on the overhead light. “It's bad for your eyes to work in the dark.”

Alexander looks up at him over his laptop, scowling. His eyes are red and puffy, shadowed by the worst dark circles Burr has ever seen. His hair hasn't been washed in a while. He's wearing a really nasty-looking sweatshirt that has a large hole by the collar. Presumably he has been wearing it for several days. “Burr,” he says. His voice sounds like a rusty hinge. Burr sets his bag down on the floor next to the door and puts his hands on his hips.

“You look awful,” he says. Alexander squints at him, and he's so genuinely pathetic that it would be difficult for anybody to avoid feeling a tug at their heartstrings. At least he knows Alexander won't be trying anything in this state; that's a small comfort. “No wonder your wife is so anxious, you look like some sort of ghoul.”

Alexander's scowl deepens. Burr walks slowly across the room, avoids making any sudden movements. Alexander says nothing and and returns his attention to his computer screen. He resumes typing with one hand. He's faster than Burr would have expected.

When Burr gets close, Alexander croaks, “Why are you here.”

“Because apparently you haven't eaten or slept in days, you're scaring your wife, and I'm the only one who can talk sense into you.” Burr yanks Alexander's desk chair away from his desk with his foot, then reaches over and shuts his laptop.

“Hey!”

Alexander gets up and tries to step towards his desk, so Burr grabs him by the arm to stop him. His arm feels skinnier than it should, even through his sweatshirt. He's lost weight. Also, he smells strongly of whiskey and sweat. “Let go,” Alexander growls. He scowls up at him, eyes steely and hostile, and Burr is reminded strongly of the much younger version of him he met at school. Like a drowning alley cat.

“Since I highly doubt you're planning on sleeping or eating if I do that, I'm gonna go ahead and hold onto you for a while,” he says.

“Don't treat me like I'm a _child,_ Burr,” Alexander spits. Hiss, meow. “I don't need your help.”

“If you act like a child, I'm going to treat you like one,” Burr says firmly, and starts dragging him across the room towards the door. “You smell terrible. Where's your bathroom?”

Alexander digs in his heels and tries to yank away. Burr is stronger than him on a good day; when he's a malnourished wreck, he's hopelessly feeble. All he manages to do is slow him down. “Let go of me, you prick!”

“I'll find your bathroom myself, then,” Burr yanks Alexander's arm hard, forcing him to stumble after him out the door. “Let's get you cleaned up.”

Sullen and defeated, Alexander trails after him. The bathroom is the third door Burr tries; it's very cozy, with a few plants on the windowsill and a floral-print shower curtain. Burr flicks on the lights and shoves Alexander towards the shower/tub. “Take your clothes off.”

“Fuck you,” Alexander says, pressing himself against the wall and crossing his arms over his chest. He's swaying, slightly, not quite able to stand up straight. “Get out of my house.”

Burr rolls up his sleeves and runs the bath hot. “You can take your clothes off and bathe like a normal person, or you can do nothing and I will drop you in the tub with your clothes on. Those are your options right now.”

“How about I kick your ass?” Alexander doesn't have the energy to even _sound_ particularly aggressive. Apparently he had approximately one minute's worth of fight left. Now he just sounds tired and miserable.

He straightens up and puts his hands on his hips. “You can try, but I think I like my chances.”

Alexander looks downright mutinous, like he's actually considering fighting him. For a weird minute, Burr really wants him to try, but Alexander looks away and makes a grumbling noise and pulls his sweatshirt off over his head. He turns around quickly and stares at the sink. They have an excess of toothbrushes; he counts seven.

“You're going to stay and watch me take a bath?” Normally, Burr thinks Alexander would be teasing him; now he just sounds annoyed.

“I'm going to stay and make sure you don't pass out and drown.”

Alexander makes a resigned noise and Burr hears him slosh into the tub. “This is too hot.”

He snorts. Typical. “You should have done it yourself, then.”

“I was going to eventually.” Alexander grumbles. Burr turns to give him a skeptical look, but he loses steam when he sees him. He looks even more pathetic sitting in the bath with his knees hugged to his chest and his useless bandaged hand resting on his knees.

“You're not doing a lot of bathing, there,” he says. Alexander shrugs and leans his head against the wall. “Alexander, come on.”

“Everything sucks, taking a bath isn't going to help.”

What a child. He sits on the floor next to the tub and says, “Don't be such a baby. Wash your hair.”

Alexander splashes the bath water a little bit, and continues to stare at nothing. He's in quite the state. Burr sighs. In for a penny, in for a pound, he supposes. Alexander needs to at least wash his hair so he doesn't _look_ like garbage. He grabs the cup from the counter next to the sink, then takes off his shoes, rolls up the bottoms of his jeans, and sits on the edge of the bathtub. “You're absolutely unbearable. Get over here.”

“What are you doing.”

What _is_ he doing? Burr pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. He's here to help. As a friend. Nothing weird. He's here to get Alexander functional again, because everyone needs him functional. His wife, Angelica, George Washington, the country. “I'm going to wash your hair. Come here.”

“That's weird, Burr.”

He fills the cup with water and dumps it over Alexander's head. “Stop complaining or wash your own hair. You're gross.”

Alexander looks at him, blinking away water that's dripping into his eyes. He looks like garbage, and Burr really desperately wishes that his heart wasn't still jumping into his throat when he makes eye contact. “You've barely touched me the whole time we've known each other,” he says hoarsely. “Now you're gonna wash my hair?”

“Unless you're going to do it yourself, yeah,” he says, and keeps his face even and steady, looking back at him. Exposure therapy. This is good for him. Alexander's eyes don't have the intensity they usually do; he can barely focus at all.

Alexander sighs, turns, and presses his back against Burr's legs. Burr dumps another cup of water on his head, then picks up the shampoo. Now he has to actually touch him. He hesitates, staring at the back of his neck, the curve of his shoulder, his shoulderblades under his skin.

It's just skin, he tells himself. Just a shoulder. He hisses in a breath through his teeth, braces himself, and puts some shampoo on his hand. “So, do you want to talk?”

Alexander shifts, and Burr's eyes catch on the way his bones and muscles shift under his skin as he moves. “Talk about what?”

“Laurens,” he says, and at the sound of the name Alexander's entire body twitches. He picks at the cast on his hand and clears his throat loudly.

“There's nothing to talk about. He's dead.”

Really? The gall he has to pull that. The amount he's been moping, and then he says there's nothing to talk about. Burr combs his fingers through Alexander's hair and says, “Then let's talk about how you haven't left your room in days.”

Alexander swishes his hands in the bathwater and mumbles, “I've been busy.”

Keeping him talking makes this easier. Burr presses his fingertips against his scalp and studiously ignores how Alexander's hands twitch. “Too busy to bathe?”

“There's no time,” he says. Burr can feel whatever's been keeping him awake for days rising back up. His shoulders get tense, his voice urgent and manic. Alexander gestures angrily and stutters, too wired to speak clearly. “It's-- there's just-- there's no _time._ I have to work.”

“How many times do you have to be told you're no good to anyone dead?” Burr lowers his voice to try to make it sound more soothing as he massages Alexander's scalp. “You need to calm down. Slow down. You have plenty of time. The war is over, you have nothing _but_ time.”

Alexander gets even more tense. He's a string wound too tight; if he gets much more tense, he's going to snap. “You don't understand,” Alexander says, voice brimming with frustration. “You're _you._ It's-- I'm-- you just wouldn't get it.”

Burr tugs his hair and murmurs, “Try me.”

Alexander takes a breath, finally, and he starts to maybe wind down again. As Burr pours another cup of water over his head to rinse his hair, he relaxes his shoulders again. Burr rinses his hair again, watches the water slide over his shoulders, and lets him take his time. “I was twelve when my mother died,” Alexander says, after a long silence. His voice shakes-- he sounds on the verge of tears-- but he talks anyway. “She was holding me. We were sick, and she was holding me.”

Burr slides his fingers through Alexander's hair and Alexander leans into his hands with a heavy sigh. “Couple years after that, a hurricane hit my island. It destroyed everything. That was the only reason I got into any schools at all, you know. I wrote about the hurricane. Colleges love that shit.”

Alexander standing in the pouring rain, clothes full of holes, clutching his notebooks to his chest. Hurricane season always means a lot of rain traveling up the coast; it was just a few weeks after the hurricane hit those islands in the Carribean. The latest disaster of the hour, with celebrity fundraisers and everything; there were posters on campus for about a week before they all lost interest. He'd never really thought about it much.

“I've been living on borrowed time all my life. I need to do as much as I can in the time I have, because I don't have much of it. I never thought I'd live past twenty.”

Everything slides into place, finally. He feels like he ought to feel bad for him-- moved by his tragedy, perhaps-- but mostly he feels the immense satisfaction of puzzle pieces clicking together, finishing the picture. All his impulsive nonsense, the immense amounts of work, the revolution.

He's not scared of dying because he thinks of himself as dead already.

“But you did live past twenty,” Burr says.

“But I shouldn't have!” Alexander's voice cracks into something like a sob, but he doesn't dissolve into tears. Instead, he keeps talking, even though his voice sounds like it's painful to speak. “Every bullet I dodge hits someone else, and I'm running out of people to take them for me. John wasn't supposed to die, it was supposed to be me.”

He buries his face in his and mumbles, again: “It was supposed to be me.”

“If it was supposed to be you, it would have been you,” Burr says. It's sort of astonishing, how differently Alexander thinks about this. How he manages to be fundamentally foreign to him, not quite within the grasp of understanding, despite all they have in common. It seems pretty straightforward to him that Alexander is clearly _supposed_ to be alive, given how much he's lived through. It seems foolish to think he's just lucky.

Alexander shakes his head, but doesn't say anything else. Burr sighs. “You'll feel more reasonable after you sleep, I imagine. Come on, get up, you're clean enough.”

He stands up and flicks water off his hands; Alexander doesn't move, so he nudges him with his foot. “ _Up,_ Alexander.” Alexander makes a grumbling noise and gets up, bracing himself on the wall. Burr turns around as fast as he can and almost faceplants in his hurry to get out of the tub while also averting his eyes. He slams his hand on the wall to stop himself falling, and Alexander actually snorts.

Face burning, he straightens up and clears his throat loudly. Eyes front. He's doing so well. He didn't touch Alexander's shoulders. He presses his hands over his mouth and takes a deep breath and thanks the Lord that Alexander is too out of it to tease him. This could be so much worse.

Alexander, wrapped in a towel, leans heavily against the wall. He looks a bit less shit, now, but still bad.

“Come on, then,” He grabs Alexander's arm. “Clothes, food, tea, then bed.”

“I'm not going to sleep,” Alexander says, scowling stubbornly and pressing himself flatter against the wall. “I was in the middle of something. I have to finish it.”

Burr scowls back at him. “Whatever it is can wait. You're _going_ to get at least eight hours of sleep.”

Alexander tilts his head back, exposing his throat, and looks him in the eye. Burr's breath catches in his throat and his grip on Alexander's arm tighens involuntarily. “And you're gonna make me?”

His eyes are dark, his pulse beating fast in his neck. Burr flicks his tongue out over his lips. This is bad. Keep it casual. He says, “yeah,” but his voice is much lower and more hoarse than he would like it to be.

Alexander's mouth twists into a hostile not-quite-smile and he narrows his eyes. “I dare you.”

He hesitates.

He tears his eyes away and clears his throat. “ _Anyway_ ,” he says too loudly. He has to look at something besides Alexander's face, so he opens the door and shoves Alexander into the hallway with too much force. “You're exhausted and you need to sleep. Once you lie down, I guarantee you'll be out cold.”

What is _wrong_ with him? With either of them? What _was_ that?Panic twists its way up his throat, but he can't panic now. Not until Alexander is asleep. Then he can panic as much as he wants. Until then, keep it together.

Alexander lets Burr steer him back into the study. He doesn't want to wake Eliza, who is clearly in dire need of a solid night's sleep, so Burr gives Alexander some of the clothes from his bag. They hang strangely on him, because Alexander is smaller than him, but Alexander rolls up the sleeves of the button-down and the bottoms of the pajama pants and manages not to look comedically tiny.

Burr's in a daze, but he manages to get Alexander to eat an entire sandwich and drink an entire cup of tea with only a little bit of menacing. Through this process, Burr studiously avoids eye contact and doesn't touch him unless he absolutely has to. Alexander has zoned out so hard that he doesn't seem to notice. Alexander doesn't say anything, just stares into space and occasionally nods or shakes his head or shrugs.

He doesn't speak again until Burr asks him where the guest room is, and he isn't answering the question.

“I never told you about any of that before,” he says.

“No, you haven't.” Burr glances around at the various identical dark wood doors. None of them looks more like a guest room than any of the others. Process of elimination doesn't help much-- he knows which one Eliza went in, which one is the bathroom, and which one is the study, but there's a few more.

Alexander fiddles with the sleeves of his borrowed shirt. “What happened to your parents?”

He grits his teeth and tries his best to not scowl. Even with other orphans, he can't escape the question forever. Once they know he's an orphan, it's just a matter of time before they push. _Were they sick? Were they murdered? How old were you? Oh, that's so young-- so tragic-- I can't believe it--_

“I'm not gonna get into it right now,” he mutters, and punches him in the shoulder. “Which one is the guestroom?”

Alexander points at one of the rooms and grumbles, “I told you my thing.”

Burr pushes him towards the door. “You sure did. Doesn't mean I need to join in on the sharing. Come on.”

He has to drag Alexander into the guest room because he starts getting mulish again. Apparently his righteous indignation can't be kept down for long. He digs his heels in and crosses his arms over his chest and glares at him. “It's not fair for you to know this much about me. I still know barely anything about how _you_ grew up.”

“Go to sleep.” Burr looks around the room to avoid eye contact. It's huge. There's not much furniture in it, considering how large it is; just a bed and a dresser and a desk, with a few unpacked boxes shoved into a corner.

Alexander sits down on the bed, arms still crossed over his chest. “I'm not going to sleep until you tell me about at least one personal tragedy of yours. Fair's fair.”

One minute he's catatonic, next he's starting a fight. Christ. Burr shoves his hands in his pockets and walks over to the bed, strongly considering hitting him over the head with a large blunt object. “Alexander, lie down.”

“Fuck you.”

What an impossible brat. Burr sighs and sits down on the bed-- on the end where it's safe. “Car accident and suicide. I was very young,” he says curtly.

“You have a real talent for storytelling,” Alexander scoots closer. “Almost too detailed, really.”

“I get that a lot,” He shifts away, scowling at the hardwood floor and not at him. “Go to sleep.”

“You know that doesn't count. You didn't even use complete sentences,” Alexander is such an unbelievably obnoxious dickhead. Burr hates him so much. He feels him move closer again and fixes his eyes on the stripe in the wallpaper. Alexander nudges him and says, “Come on.”

“No. I gave you what you asked for, be satisfied with that.”

Alexander exhales, and it almost sounds like a laugh. “I have never been satisfied, Aaron.”

With that, he crawls under the blankets and pulls them over his head. Burr stands up, annoyed, and says, “Don't call me Aaron.”

“Why not?” Alexander's voice is muffled by the blankets, but still unfortunately audible. “You've been calling me _Alexander_ since you got here.”

Ah. Caught again. Alexander really does notice these things. He wishes he wouldn't. Burr grimaces and rubs his neck and says, “Yeah. Don't read into it.”

He sees Alexander shrug under the blankets, but he doesn't say anything else. He stands there for a few minutes to make sure he's fallen asleep-- which of course he has-- before going to get the desk chair from the study. As much as he would very dearly like to, he can't leave Alexander alone until he's confident he's not going to try to hang himself with the bedsheets.

When did it get so easy to call him  _ Alexander?  _ When did it become okay for him to wash his hair and make him food? Why can't he stop this distance from shrinking? No matter how hard he tries, the gap gets smaller and smaller. 

Is he even trying that hard?  He could certainly be trying harder. He could have said no. Could have stopped taking Alexander's calls months, years ago.

He closes his eyes and all he can think about is Alexander's neck, his eyes, his lowered eyelashes. 

Bastard.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the longest chapter so far i think.......... and also....... the spiciest......????


	16. i have so much work to do

**Theo  
** So how is A.Ham

 **To: Theo  
** Ughhhhhhh

 **To: Theo  
** Hes throwing a tantrum like a child

 **Theo  
** Ummm his best friend just died cut him some slack

 **Theo  
** it's to be expected that hes upset...

 **To: Theo  
** AND hes

 **Theo  
**?

 **To: Theo  
** Nothing hes just v draining. Will do my best re: slack-cutting &c

 **Theo  
** seriously, be nice to him. Don't start a fight.

 **To: Theo  
** HE'S starting fights not me!!

 **To: Theo  
** I am NOBLY RESISTING

 **Theo  
** Well keep doing that then :P

 **Theo  
** You two have the strangest friendship i swear . You are so much nicer to all your other friends!

 **To: Theo  
** I'm being nice!!

 **Theo  
** You better be

 **To: Theo  
** I'm making breakfast. Proof of me being nice:  
[IMG SENT]  


* * *

 

“Oh, wow, you made breakfast!” Eliza says, startling him; he jumps and nearly drops the toast he just took out of the toaster. She shuffles into the kitchen from the doorway, wrapped in a large white blanket and smiling tiredly at him. “That's so sweet of you.”

“Well, I am here to help.” He slides the plate of toast onto the table. He's also made eggs and bacon, and sliced up some of the fruit they had. The Hamiltons have quite a bit of food; real food, too, and hardly any junk. Eliza must be a good influence on Alexander; left to his own devices, Burr is quite confident that Alexander would survive on energy drinks and take-out. There aren't any energy drinks to be found, here. Just local juice and seltzer water.

Eliza sits down at the kitchen table and picks up a piece of bacon with her bare hand. “So, how is he?”

She has the tone of someone very carefully pretending to be calm while in actuality feeling quite anxious. He gets himself a plate and some food and sits across from her; he really doesn't know much about her, beyond that she's married to Alexander, is rich, and probably went to Smith.

“He's sleeping,” he says.

Her responding smile lights up her entire face. “That's wonderful! Oh, I'm so relieved.” She seems to relax a bit, and she takes a plate for food. Burr watches her with interest, chewing slowly on his toast. She's dainty, precise, and careful. Different kinds of food are carefully separated on her plate. Why would anyone that tidy ever want to marry Alexander Hamilton?

“I made him bathe and eat a sandwich, as well,” he says.

“You're a miracle-worker,” The warmth in her face and her voice when she looks at him makes him feel very intensely guilty. She smiles and rubs her eyes tiredly. “I tried, but he got angry with me. He's difficult to be around when he's angry. Lots of shouting.”

Difficult is one word for it. “He's an asshole,” he says.

“Not all the time,” Eliza glances up at the ceiling and her smile fades. “He's had a hard life. I think it'd be foolish of me not to expect him to be an ass sometimes.”

He really doesn't think having a hard life is a good excuse for Alexander's truly atrocious behavior, but he's not about to start a fight with a sleep-deprived pregnant woman about her husband's personality. He eats more toast and keeps his face polite and interested.

Eliza adds, “Anyway, from what I've heard, he's much more of an ass to you than he is to me.”

“I would hope so.”

He realizes he doesn't know Eliza's version of Alexander. He thinks he's seen bits of him-- glimpses-- his hands on his face, a gentle smile-- but he doesn't _know_ him. The version of Alexander he knows is not a complete picture, and it has never been more obvious.

Maybe he's nice to Eliza. It never seemed like he was especially nice to Laurens. He feels a twinge of annoyance-- he'll never know what their relationship was, now. Alexander's probably never going to explain, and no one else seems to know much about it.

Now he's curious, in that way he only feels about Alexander. That frighteningly intense desire to _know_ him comes creeping back, the same desire that filled his apartment with printouts of every single thing Alexander ever wrote, that pushes him to keep listening to hours of him chattering. He wants to understand him. Alexander isn't like other people; he can read other people, but not him. Every time he thinks he understands Alexander, he's quickly proven wrong.

He doesn't know how to pry without being rude, so he says nothing.

Eliza says, “I know he's glad you're here,” and it's exactly what he wants and doesn't want to hear. It would be better-- much better-- if Alexander didn't want him here. He chews and swallows, carefully doesn't give her any kind of reaction. When he looks at her, she's smiling.

“You're very dear to him,” she adds.

His heart aches, and the now-familiar sensation of drowning crashes down on him. _Very dear. Yours affectionately._

What does Alexander tell her about him? His _wife?_

“What did he--”

Alexander staggers in and he stops abruptly. He looks like shit, still, but slightly less so now; the sunlight helps, Burr thinks. The dark circles under his eyes look less harsh, and his hair is now frizzy and tangled rather than greasy.

“Alexander!” Eliza is halfway between worried and delighted. “You came downstairs!”

“I smelled food.” His voice is still ragged and hoarse. He shuffles over to Eliza and kisses the top of her head, smiling. The way he looks at her makes Burr want to punch something. Possibly himself.

When Alexander turns that smile on him-- tender and affectionate and too intimate by far-- and says, “Morning, Aaron,” it's like being struck by lightning. It's much worse than drowning; this is sharply painful, and it forcibly rips the breath out of his lungs, makes him feel dizzy and jittery and hollow.

He tries to cover the strangled noise he makes with a cough, but it doesn't help much. “Hrrgghkk” is a conspicuously inappropriate response to someone saying _good morning,_ and the fake coughing probably actually made it weirder. He stands up and forces a strained smile as his hands start to shake.

He doesn't like to mumble or speak too quickly-- they are both bad habits trained out of him as a child-- so when he says, “Here, you can take my seat,” it comes out sounding reasonably calm. For a regular person, he probably sounds perfectly normal. It is distinctly quicker and more mumbling than the way he usually speaks, though, and Alexander probably noticed.

Alexander doesn't miss much, it's not like he's stupid-- does he _know_ this is torture? Does he do this on purpose? Is it fun for him, watching Burr's heart rip itself into pieces?

If Burr could actually bear to look at his face, maybe he could get some insight into that question. Instead, he looks at anything but Alexander's face as he puts his plate on the counter and adds, “I'm going to step outside.”

“Come on, Burr, would it kill you to eat with us?”

His strained smile feels like it's going to break his face. God, he needs a cigarette. Or ten. “I don't want to intrude,” he says, and goes into the front hall to pull on his shoes.

He pretends he doesn't hear Alexander say, “It's not intruding if you're invited.”  


* * *

  
Predictably, Alexander doesn't leave him be. Sitting on the front steps of the townhouse, cigarette between his fingers, he doesn't need to turn and look to know it's Alexander closing the front door behind him.

“So what did I do this time? Why are you mad at me?”

Burr fiddles with his cigarette and keeps squinting straight ahead. The sun is shining into his eyes, and it would really be more comfortable to turn around, but he doesn't want to look at Alexander. “I'm not mad at you.”

“Burr, I really need for you to not be angry with me right now,” Alexander sounds desperate and exasperated at the same time; since Burr almost always feels desperate and exasperated when he has to be around Alexander, there's something deeply satisfying about that. “I can't apologize or fix whatever I did unless you tell me what the problem is.”

There he goes again, trying to steer the conversation towards somewhere it really shouldn't ever go. Alexander already knows what _the problem_ is. “There isn't a problem. I needed a cigarette,” he says. Alexander makes a frustrated noise; he needs to change the subject. “Did you eat?”

“Yeah, and Laurens is still dead and I still feel like shit.”

He's back to being a sullen child. Great. At least when he's being annoying he doesn't make Burr feel like he's dying. (It also helps that he's sitting behind him, and Burr can't see his eyelashes or his neck or his wrists.)

Burr says, “Suck it up.”

“That's what I was doing when _you_ showed up and told me to stop,” Alexander's starting to raise his voice. “You seemed to think I needed to talk about my feelings, remember?”

Maybe Burr can keep provoking him, and that will both get Alexander to stop moping _and_ prevent him from doing that thing again. The thing where he drops his voice down a pitch and lowers his eyelashes and-- and all that. Burr really wants to make it through the weekend without having to look at that again.

“If you honestly believe that was you sucking it up, you really are an idiot.”

Alexander inhales sharply, then snaps, “What the hell do you want from me, Burr?”

“I don't want anything from you,” he says-- maybe the biggest lie he has ever told in his entire goddamn life-- “but I know your wife, George Washington, and probably about a million other people all want you to stop scaring everyone and be a functional human being. Which you aren't, right now.”

“What if I don't _want_ to be a functional human being?”

This is absurd. He doesn't have the right to behave like a petulant child, let alone the time-- there are people counting on him. He has responsibilities. They have a country to create. Burr taps ash off the end of his cigarette and says, flatly, “Tough shit. You had your tantrum, now it's time to get your shit together and get back to reality.”

To his surprise, Alexander goes quiet. He scoots down the steps and sits next to Burr, combing his fingers through his hair and staring at the ground. He looks like he's staring at something very far away, lost in thought; a rare moment in which he isn't constantly broadcasting every single thought that goes through his head.

“I thought he'd always be there,” he says. He curls his hair around his fingers and sighs. “That was stupid, wasn't it?”

He could keep provoking him, try to get him angry again, but it's difficult not to lose steam when Alexander looks like this. Burr attempts: he says, “Yeah,” and Alexander looks at him through his eyelashes, which immediately evaporates Burr's will to fight. It's not quite the same as the last time; his eyes are bright and sane and sad-- no longer distant or glazed-over or tinted red. Alexander is back and lucid and beautiful. It's really awful, actually, how beautiful he is. He's like a magnet. A black hole. Burr can't look away, and for a delirious second can't think of a single reason why he would want to.

He says, “Love is stupid.”

Alexander smiles at him-- sad and wry and knowing at once-- and for once it doesn't feel like dying even a little bit. Warmth glows in his chest, soft and pleasant, and he can't help smiling back.

Like the scripture says: _The heart is more treacherous than anything else._

Alexander looks away first, still smiling-- are his cheeks slightly redder than they were before or is Burr losing his goddamn mind? Both?-- and he stands up. “Alright. You're right. Time to move on.”  


* * *

  
Turns out, when Alexander moves on, he moves on. Alexander puts himself back together and it's as if Laurens never existed. With the exception of his strangely detached remarks at the televised memorial service-- he reads a short statement about his patriotism and bravery off an index card-- that's the last Burr hears of Laurens from him.

This, Burr realizes, is how Alexander deals with things; he decides some things are _in the past_ and cuts himself off from them entirely, declares that they have nothing to do with the present and refuses to discuss them.

Eliza says-- Alexander gave her Burr's phone number-- that prying information about his childhood out of him has been nearly impossible. She still knows basically nothing about his father, and as far as she knows she is the one he's talked to about it the most. Neither of them say, _maybe Laurens knew_ , but Burr knows they're both thinking it.  


* * *

  
The rest of the year is a blur, and two things keep him extremely busy: Theodosia is pregnant, and they move back to New York City. The two sort of blend together as one big mass of stuff to do; doctor's appointments and picking out colors for the nursery and looking at schools and packing and unpacking boxes. On top of everything, he works on finishing his degree, and has to figure out what he's going to do once he gets it.

It's a lot. Alexander offers to help him move, pesters him about meeting Theo, and Burr refuses. Now that they're both in New York, it will be more difficult to keep putting off introducing the two of them, but Burr feels even more strongly that he doesn't want these two parts of his life to meet. They have to be kept separate, or something terrible will happen-- he doesn't know what he's so worried about, really, but he's worried. If Theo meets Alexander, sees the two of them interact-- she's always been able to read him better than anyone else-- it would be disastrous.

It's bad enough that she says, sometime in November, “It seems like you and he have been closer since his friend died. You used to only call him Hamilton, but now he's almost always Alexander.”

It's bad enough that Alexander sends him a large poinsettia for Christmas with a note that fills up every available inch of the card it's written in, and he signs off the note _yours, Alexander H_ with a little heart drawn next to his name. (Burr sends him a leatherbound journal, and his card just says _Merry Christmas -A.Burr_.)  


* * *

**  
@eliiiza  
** This is A Ham in the mix ! Eliza gave me permission to tweet for her. She has been very busy GIVING BIRTH YO!!!!!!!!!

 **@eliiiza  
** MEET PHILIP HAMILTON!! MY SON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
[03.22.2024_24.png]

 **@eliiiza  
** LOOK AT MY SON!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
[03.22.2024_25.png][03.22.2024_26.png]

 **@eliiiza  
** I am crying a lot. Philip is the most beautiful baby ever to be born and Eliza is the most beautiful lady  
[03.22.2024_27.png]  


* * *

**  
@AaronBurr  
** Welcome to the world, little Theodosia. :)  
[06.21.2024_05.png]

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay!! ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; i should be able to go back to regular updates soon & will have another chapter up in the next few days
> 
> (philip hamiltons birthday is actually january 22 but u know................. time is a social construct....... so..................)


	17. hamilton doesn't hesitate

Of course, they start practicing law at the same time.

Of course, Alexander's office is right next to his.

Alexander has his wrist braces on all the time, now-- he writes constantly, publishes more papers than anyone can keep track of, devotes himself to his work with a feverish intensity. No matter how late Burr stays at his office, it seems like Alexander is there later-- he can see the lights on when he leaves.

Alexander is a nightmare in court. He always talks too fast and too much, he's messy, he improvises too much-- he doesn't _bullshit,_ but he does like to shout in paragraphs. Burr absolutely does not want to have to work with him as an attorney.

Of course, he has to work with him. How could he refuse the opportunity of a lifetime-- the first peacetime murder trial-- just because he doesn't like Alexander's style? He can't. So he doesn't.

They prepare separately, thank God, and Burr spends a lot of time working from home with other members of the legal team. Theo works, too, and he's doing his best not to force her into being a full-time parent. Little Theo is, of course, an absolute delight, and she likes it when Burr reads excerpts of his argument out loud to her. She'll be a lawyer some day, he's sure of it.

For a while, he thinks maybe it will actually be fine; Alexander is feverishly dedicated to his work, and takes it incredibly seriously.

But now they have to go to trial, and Alexander is doing that thing he does where he vibrates with manic energy, bouncing up on the balls of his feet and fidgeting.

Burr grabs his arm and takes him aside; he can't let him go into the courtroom like this. “You know this is a big deal, right,” he says. Alexander looks up at him, wide-eyed and excited, and it's like being his TA all over again. “You need to calm down.”

“I'm calm,” Alexander says, drumming his fingers on his stack of papers. His eyes flick to the door and back to Burr quickly, impatiently. “I'm very calm. I'm so ready for this, Burr, you don't even know. I was up all night last night finishing my opening statement.”

Burr very specifically told him _not_ to stay up all night, because he needed to be well-rested, and Alexander said _oh I will I just have to finish this one thing and then I'm off to bed._ “You said you were going to sleep,” he hisses.

Alexander rolls his eyes. “I'll sleep tonight-- come on, Burr, we gotta start, let's go let's go let's go--”

Burr grabs his arm so he can't go running off and hisses, “Alexander, slow down.”

Alexander swats his hand away and insists, “Burr, I _got_ this.”

“Sure you do. Just-- please, stick to the script, don't go off on any tangents, and don't talk so fast no one can understand you. You have to sound polished and professional,” Alexander is staring at the courtroom door, every inch of him impatient. Burr kicks him in the shin so he'll look back at him. “Are you listening to me?”

“Yeah, yeah, talk less, smile more,” Alexander says hurriedly. “I'm telling you I got this, it'll be fine, don't fuss.”

 

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'm curious-- bear with me-- are you aware that we're making history? This is the first murder trial of our brand new nation--”

Burr buries his face in his hands and takes deep calming breaths. Alexander is talking too fast, and he's rambling, and this is a disaster. He's too amped up. This is why Burr told him to sleep, so this wouldn't happen. Every second he keeps talking, it becomes more clear that he's not going to be able to pull his shit together. He still hasn't actually _said_ anything.

“With my assistant counsel--”

That's it; he has to be stopped. “ _Co-counsel_ ,” Burr says crisply. He stands up and buttons his jacket with one hand, grabs Alexander's opening statement with the other. He puts his hand on Alexander's shoulder and hisses, “Hamilton, _sit down._ ”

Alexander looks rather taken aback, but Burr gives him a withering look and he sits. Too surprised to argue, for now. He'll get over that quickly, but for now they have a job to do. Burr delivers an abbreviated version of the opening statement, and he practically drags Alexander out of the courtroom as soon as they're in recess.

“I swear to God, if we weren't in the middle of something I would kick your ass,” he says under his breath as he walks very quickly towards the door, digging his fingers into Alexander's arm. Alexander stumbles to keep up, scowling up at him. “You did the _opposite_ of what I told you to do.”

“ _You_ stole my opening statement,” Alexander snarls. “ _You're_ the one being unprofessional, I mean-- _who_ _does that?_ ”

They slam through the door and Burr drags Alexander outside, keeping his jaw clenched shut as they stalk past the people scattered in the hallways. As soon as they're out, Alexander wrenches his arm free and whirls on him. “You _interrupted_ me and stole my opening-- people are _watching_ this trial, Burr, it's a big deal!”

Burr clenches his hands into fists, digs his nails into his palms. Hitting him will solve nothing. “ _You_ were jittery and rambling, and I'm not about to let you screw this up for me!”

“I'm not going to screw it up! I was just _talking_! For God's sake--” Alexander throws his hands up and screws up his face and says, “I mean, _fuck,_ Burr, I want to win this trial as much as you do! You have to _trust me,_ I'm not a kid any more!”

That takes the fight out of him all at once, because for once Alexander is right. He's right, and Burr is left feeling stupid and embarrassed and pointlessly upset. He never loses his temper like that. It's astonishingly poor manners, as well as overly revealing. “Well-- I'm-- sorry,” he says haltingly.

Alexander stares up at him for a moment, then he bursts into delighted laughter. This doesn't help with the embarrassment or the awkwardness _or_ the urge to punch him in the face. Burr scowls at him while he cackles.

“I've never seen you so angry!” Alexander grins broadly at him and takes a step forward, putting him firmly in Burr's personal space. “Not since that time you dragged me away from that riot, anyway!”

“You're the only person capable of making me lose my temper,” Burr says sharply, but it just seems to make Alexander more pleased. Which-- it's good that they aren't shouting at each other any more, but Burr also doesn't want Alexander to be _pleased._

Alexander's eyes flick over him. “I like that,” he says.

“Okay, we're going back inside,” Burr turns sharply on his heel and Alexander laughs. He doesn't need to look at him to know he's trailing after him as he goes back inside. “Please stick to the material we've prepared.”

Alexander brushes against his side and mutters, “I just told you that you need to trust me.”

“I trust your writing. I don't trust _improv_ ,” Burr hisses. “You need to stay on script.”

“I'm not going to completely change the way I do my job just for you. You're not _that_ handsome.”

“I'm sorry, what?” Burr stops, but they're surrounded by people again and Alexander just quirks his eyebrows at him and keeps walking. When he catches up to him, Burr leans over and mutters, “I hate you,” in Alexander's ear.

Alexander laughs. “You  _wish_ you hated me.”  
  


* * *

 

There's nothing like summer in the city.

His air conditioner has been broken for weeks, and he hasn't bothered to replace it, so he has the windows open all the time. There's always a terrible ruckus outside, which he hates, but he's starting to get used to working through the noise. He tells himself that it's helping his focus; he's learning to concentrate anywhere, with any amount of noise.

What isn't helping his focus is the fact that Theo and little Theo are away on vacation; despite not hearing it buzz or ring, he checks his phone every minute or so to see if Theo has called or texted or emailed or _something._ They haven't been apart this long since the war, and he doesn't like it. The empty house feels cold and miserable. He used to like living alone, but now he finds himself bored and lonely and disoriented when he's by himself in the house. He keeps thinking he ought to be keeping an eye on little T, and panics when he doesn't see her, and then feels stupid when he remembers that he's supposed to be alone. After having decidedly too many of these tiny panic attacks a day, Burr starts sleeping in his office. Well, sort of sleeping. Mostly he just ends up working until very very early and then sleeps about three hours. It feels terrible.

So when someone knocks on his door at three in the morning one night, he is awake and hears it, although he does think he's hallucinating for a second. He pauses his typing, and stares at the door, and someone knocks again.

If it's someone this late, it must be important-- he jumps to his feet and snatches his shirt off the chair he threw it onto, knocks over three separate piles of books on his way to the door, and yells, “One minute!”

He fumbles with the buttons on his shirt and gets them mostly done-- done enough-- and yanks the door open. The light in the hallway is much harsher than the desk lamp in his office, and it hurts his eyes.

Of course, it's just the worst person in the world. Who else would be banging on his door in the middle of the night? “Alexander,” he says, squinting down at him. Alexander grins; he looks awake and fully clothed, like it's the middle of the day. He's not even dressed for office work-- jeans and a t-shirt and he's not wearing his wrist braces. This is all extremely annoying.

Alexander looks him over, eyebrows raised, like _he's_ the weird one for not being properly dressed, like it's not three in the morning. “Aaron Burr, sir.”

“It's the middle of the night,” He rubs his temples-- these lights are giving him a headache-- and leans heavily against the side of the doorframe. Now that he's standing up, he feels a lot more tired than he did when he was working. “What the hell do you want?”

“Can I come in?” he asks. Burr glares at him, but he sort of bats his eyelashes and smiles expectantly and, like... he already opened the door, he might as well invite him in, right? What's the point in saying no? Alexander's probably going to stand there until Burr lets him in, and he'll probably shout, and he might as well skip to the part where he's inevitably agreed.

“Ugh, fine,” He steps back into his office and kicks some books out of the middle of the floor. It's sort of a disaster in here, but it is almost certainly tidier than Alexander's office, so he doesn't bother apologizing for the mess. As he walks back to his desk, he grumbles, “Don't touch anything.”

Alexander follows, and closes the door behind him. His shoulders tense at the noise; being in a room alone with Alexander, especially late at night, feels like a bad idea. He leans against the wall near his desk, as far away from him as possible, and crosses his arms over his chest.

Probably because Burr told him not to touch anything, Alexander proceeds to touch everything on his shelves. He slides books off the shelves and flips through them, runs his fingertips over the edges of his picture frames-- he doesn't look at anything without touching it.

Burr watches him closely, tension coiling around his chest. Alexander's hair is pulled up into a haphazard bun, exposing the nape of his neck. His traitor eyes fix on that, on the way stray dark hairs curl at the base of his skull. It's impossible not to think of the way water slid down his neck and over his shoulderblades that time-- the curve where his neck met his shoulder, the press of his spine under his skin, he clears his throat and tears his eyes away to stare instead at the ceiling.

“So, what do you want?” Burr asks again, more pointedly this time. He wants to get Alexander out of here as soon as possible. Something in the way Alexander is prowling around his room feels rather like being trapped in a cage with a mountain lion.

Alexander glances over his shoulder at him and holds up one of the framed pictures. “Is this your family?”

It's a picture of his parents and his sister, just a toddler at the time, smiling at the camera in front of the Eiffel Tower. He's not in it; his mother is pregnant with him in the photograph. Sometimes it doesn't really feel like a photo of his family; his only memories of their faces are from pictures he's seen. He never really knew any of them. His eyes linger on the picture for a moment before he says, “Who else's family would it be?”

“I dunno, could have been your wife's,” Alexander examines the photograph again, brushing his thumb absentmindedly along the side of the frame. Burr grits his teeth and resists the urge to stomp over and snatch it out of his hands. When Alexander inspects these pictures and his things, he's inspecting _him,_ and he doesn't like feeling inspected. “You never mentioned a sister. Is she dead, too?”

Burr's shoulder tense. This is all getting entirely too personal. He says, “Yeah,” as curtly as possible, to indicate that he _does not want to talk about it_ and also that _he should leave soon,_ but Alexander is unfazed. He gently sets the picture back on the shelf and resumes blithely slinking about.

“I had a brother who died,” Alexander says as he walks behind Burr's desk and peers out the window. He fiddles with the leaves of the poinsettia-- Burr put it on the windowsill, figuring plants like sun-- and smiles distantly at the plant.

There is only one plant in his office, and it's that stupid thing Alexander gave him which hasn't flowered since he got it but of course Alexander recognizes it anyway. He hates that Alexander knows he only has the one plant, now. He hates watching Alexander look at his things so thoughtfully, like he's making mental notes on it all, like he _knows_ him.

Alexander keeps looking at the plant. “You ever think about fate, Burr?”

He almost says _yes_ , but he stops himself. He shouldn't participate in Alexander's nonsense. Instead, he clears his throat and asks, loudly, “Why are you here?”

Apparently finally willing to get to the point, Alexander straightens up and says, “Three things.” He tugs his hair loose and slides his hair elastic over his wrist. Burr gives him an impatient look, and Alexander smiles back at him, taking his sweet goddamn time.

“One: I've never been in your office before, so I wanted to see it.”

“You could have done that during the day.”

“ _And_ I wanted to propose an idea,” Alexander presses, eyes bright, smile ominously wide. He leans on the back of Burr's chair, laces his long bony fingers together, and Burr eyes him warily. “Burr, you're a better lawyer than me.”

That's true, but something he was pretty sure Alexander would only ever admit under duress. “Okay,” he says warily. Alexander _wants_ something from him, which is probably bad news for him. He's trying to stay on guard, but his eyes keep wandering to Alexander's hands-- he has such nice hands.

“I mean, really, you're one of the best, and I have a client who needs the best defense possible. Not because-- not for any sort of terrible reason, but because it's a matter of the utmost importance for the future wellbeing of the republic. ”

Alexander's getting faster and combing his hand through his hair, which usually means he knows he's going to be interrupted but wants to say his piece anyway, which means he knows this is an idea Burr isn't going to like. Burr rubs his eyes and says, “Alexander, just get to the point, please.”

“The Constitution--” is all he needs to hear. The Constitution is a mess, and he knows that Alexander loves it, and he's not interested in whatever nonsense he's cooking up in support of a document that just isn't that good.

He cuts him off before he can start, on the off chance Alexander will actually listen to him and respect his answer. “No.”

Alexander looks like he was expecting that; he steps forward and holds out his hands like he just needs to _explain_ and then Burr will change his mind. “Hear me out--”

“No way.”

“I know it has _problems_ , but the Constitution is a good thing _,_ and I know you're in favor of it at least in theory,” Alexander sounds confident, and Burr bristles even though he's right, because Alexander so confidently knowing things about him is infuriating. He takes another step “We're writing a series of essays-- just one from you would be amazing, and it would be totally anonymous, and--”

“I'm not interested,” he says flatly, but of course Alexander wants an argument. He doesn't have the energy to fight at this hour, nor does he have the energy for one of Alexander's _debates_. Hoping to cut off Alexander's oncoming argument-- he's fiddling with his hair and giving him a hard sharp look-- Burr says, “I don't work for free, an anonymous publication does nothing for me, and I won't put my name on something this controversial. What was the third thing? I want to go to sleep.”

“It wouldn't take that much time-- just _one_ , Burr,” Alexander is, of course, impossible to steer away from an argument. He steps forward again, and Burr digs his nails into his arm to stop himself from reacting. He's getting closer, and that's never a good sign. “You're not too busy to write one essay, I know you aren't.”

“Even if I weren't too busy,” Burr can feel his voice getting shakier, ever so slightly, as his heart speeds up. “I still don't get anything out of it.”

Alexander grins and leans forward, shoving his hands in his pockets, and Burr feels a sharp tug of anxiety. “What would you want?” Alexander asks, voice low. Burr's mind goes completely blank, his eyes fixed on the graceful line of Alexander's neck. He cannot think of a single thing to say.

“Uh,” He can't look away, and Alexander is staring up at him with his dark intense eyes and he can't breathe. He is so beautiful. He bites down on the inside of his cheek to snap himself out of it, clears his throat, and says, “Money. Anyway, what was the third thing?”

Two steps, and Alexander is in his personal space, suffocatingly beautiful and too close by far. Alexander hooks his fingers in Burr's belt and grins toothily up at him when Burr chokes on a sharp inhale. “Guess,” he says, eyes bright, and Burr very badly wants to throw him out the window.

Burr tilts his head back, casts an imploring look at the ceiling, wishing desperately for a comet to hit the building and kill the both of them. Failing that, perhaps the willpower to get out of here without punching or kissing him.

Surely by now Alexander has gotten sick of teasing him. Surely by now he's realized it's cruel to keep intentionally inducing tiny heart attacks. It's been ages, shouldn't he be bored with this game by now? “Alexander, get off,” he says wearily.

“Don't be like that,” Alexander murmurs. His voice is soft, sincere, in the way he so rarely is with Burr and always is with his wife. Burr keeps staring at the ceiling so he doesn't get the accompanying face, which he's sure is devastating. Alexander's knuckles, hooked into his belt, brush against his skin, and he twitches involuntarily. “Aaron, stop looking at the ceiling.”

“It's a nice ceiling. Don't call me Aaron.” It's not a nice ceiling at all; it's plain white, with frustrating off-white patches where repairs have been made. They both know it's not a nice ceiling. But anything is better than looking at Alexander's face, at his eyes, his neck, his fingers, his wrists-- any part of him, really.

“ _Mister Burr,_ ” Alexander says, drawing it out, voice low and amused and sort of smug. That's almost worse, actually, than calling him Aaron, but of course at this point it doesn't make a difference. Alexander could probably say anything in that tone of voice, his awful teasing purr, and it would have the same effect.

“Stop,” he mutters, and presses his hands over his eyes so he can't look at him. It's a bad idea. He really shouldn't. He knows what's going to happen if he does that, and it really shouldn't happen. It can't happen. What has to happen is, he has to shove Alexander off and go back to his house.

Alexander steps on his foot, and his knuckles shift ever so slightly against his skin. “Burr, look at me.”

He keeps his hands pressed firmly over his face and says, “Not gonna happen.” He has no idea if Alexander knows how dire this situation is. He has no idea what Alexander thinks this situation is at all.

Alexander laughs, and tugs on his belt, and Burr presses his hands harder against his face. “You're being childish. Look me in the face and have a conversation.”

That's rich, being called childish by _Alexander_ of all people. He tries to make an aggravated noise, but it sounds more like a desperate gasp for air due to the fact that he can't breathe. There's no point trying to disguise that sort of thing any more. Alexander knows. He knows, and he's doing this as some kind of sick joke. Burr says, “You're obviously not trying to have a conversation, Alexander.”

“Oh? What am I trying to do, then?” he asks, and it's just too annoying not to take his hands off his face and glare down at him.

Alexander's face is very close to his. His smile is crooked, teasing but fond, his lips chewed-on and chapped; his eyes are warm and bright and large, looking at him like there's no one he'd rather be looking at, and he needs to leave. Someone needs to leave, as soon as possible. This is the nightmare scenario: Burr can feel his resistance start to crumble, piece by tiny piece, and he can't look away from Alexander's face and has no idea what to do with his hands. He has to push him away, of course, but he doesn't.

“I should go home,” he says, but it sounds very feeble. Especially since he makes no move to leave.

Alexander breaks eye contact first, his eyes drifting to Burr's neck, his chest, and Burr feels suddenly very self-conscious about his shirt being buttoned so poorly. The exposed skin at his collarbone feels inappropriate, suddenly, with Alexander's eyes on him.

“You seem nervous,” Alexander says, arching one eyebrow and tilting his head to the side. “Why, Burr. Whatever is the matter.”

Burr clears his throat and shifts, pressing himself as flat as he can manage against the wall. He can't look away, which is a bad sign. “How's Eliza?” he asks very loudly, in the hopes that maybe Alexander will be distracted or feel guilty or at the very least stop looking at him with his dark brown eyes through his long eyelashes the way he is.

“She's good. Nice try,” Alexander brushes it off like it's nothing, and that bothers him even more. He's not sure he's ever felt his muscles seize up like this; the tension in his entire body is on the verge of making him start shaking. Wind something up tight enough and it snaps-- Burr needs to leave. Alexander touches his face, puts his hand on his cheek like that's an okay thing for someone to do. The ache of longing in his chest feels like dying. He wants to be closer. He wants to be on the other side of town. “You're very warm.”

Desperately, he scrambles for his only consistent defense against Alexander's nonsense: hating him. “What do you mean, _she's good?_ ” Burr snaps.

“I mean, she's good. Upstate with her family,” Alexander says mildly. “It's no use trying to make me feel bad, Aaron, I don't really think I've ever been ashamed of anything in my life.”

“You should be,” Burr growls, which continues to have no effect whatsoever on Alexander's attitude. Trying to make him back off is clearly a losing battle, but he doesn't know what else to do. Alexander brushes his thumb over his face, towards his mouth.

“Alexander,” he says weakly. “Please don't.”

“Don't what?”

He hesitates. Don't what, indeed. What is he doing? Is he just fucking with him? Still? This doesn't really seem like a joke, but he's never understood Alexander's sense of humor. “Whatever it is you're doing,” he says. “Stop it.”

“I'm reasonably certain the word for what I'm doing is within your vocabulary,” Alexander says archly. He plants the palm of his hand on the wall next to Burr's head and puts his face even closer to Burr's. “If you want me to stop doing something, you're going to have to be more specific.”

He's never met anyone more obnoxious. “You're being difficult,” Burr mumbles. He can't press himself any more against the wall, can't back up any more. There's nowhere he can go.

“I've been told I'm a difficult person,” His eyes are bright and he's smiling and Burr can't _deal_ with it. It's taking all his willpower just to stay still. He knows that if he moves at all, it'll be to touch him, and that can't happen. “Be _specific,_ Burr, and I'll stop.”

Why is he doing this? “Stop looking at me like that,” he says.

“Like what?” Alexander asks, feigning innocence and continuing to do the thing. “In what way am I looking at you?”

This is just too much-- he half-shouts, “I don't _know!_ I don't know what the fuck you think you're doing!”

Alexander stares at him for a second in stunned silence. “I'm flirting with you, you dumb piece of shit.”

He did it. He went and crossed the line. It was fine, as long as neither of them said anything. As long as Alexander didn't say anything, Burr could keep believing that he was just overly friendly, just poorly socialized, just teasing, just messing with him. Now he's said the thing, and now Burr finally officially has to deal with it. He put it off for as long as he possibly could, waiting it out, and he could have kept doing that indefinitely but of course Alexander couldn't.

He's torn it all apart, now.

“You're never satisfied, are you,” Burr says.

What he should say is: _I'm married, you're married, you need to stop._ And then he should leave. He should have done that a while ago. He should have done that years ago. It's not hard, and it's the right thing to do, and he just doesn't do it. Alexander's eyes keep him rooted to the spot, keep him frozen in place, entranced.

Alexander grins toothily. “No,” he says, completely and thoroughly unapologetic.

There are so many things he should say. He spent so many years carefully building his defenses, carefully avoiding the issue, trying to never do or say anything to give it away. He tried so hard to stay away, to maintain the distance, to keep him at arm's length, and Alexander tears through all of it in a second.

He tries to think of Theo-- of Eliza-- but he can't even remember what they look like. He can't get a hold on anything; he's already halfway down the slippery slope, there's no point and no chance in hell he gets out of this. Instead what pops into his head is Laurens, Laurens and his helpless miserable smile, how he never did manage to grow a spine and say no to Alexander. He didn't quite understand at the time. Now he does. (At least he doesn't ever have to hear Laurens say _I told you so._ )

Alexander's eyes are burning with intensity and Burr can't move away, no matter how much he feebly wills himself to. _Lord, show me how to say no to this--_ he casts a desperate glance up at the ceiling, hoping that perhaps God will stop ignoring him for the first time in his life and provide him with some sort of assistance. Almost deliriously, he thinks maybe it will work this time. He hasn't been religious for a long time, but he still knows that this being a sin is definitely a part of the guilt, the anxiety, the terror, and he still hopes that perhaps God will intervene to stop him from committing to this, to keep him from crossing the line.

No such intervention comes, of course. He's on his own, like he always has been. It's just him and Alexander's eyes, his teasing smile. If the devil were a person, he'd look like Alexander.

“We're both married,” he says, voice hoarse and weak, one last desperate attempt to guilt Alexander into backing off. Or maybe he's just trying to guilt himself into leaving-- either way, it doesn't work. He feels so terrible already it doesn't make a difference, and everything he says rolls off Alexander without any effect.

“Oh my God, stop worrying for once in your life,” Alexander says, and then he grabs a fistful of Burr's shirt and kisses him.

Everything shatters. His restraint evaporates. Alexander has stripped him of everything besides the intense longing, the desire, the desperation. This is what he has wanted for so long. This is what he wants.

With a sharp intake of breath, Aaron grabs Alexander's face and kisses him back.

As ever, they are mirrors of each other; Aaron is desperate, Alexander is eager. Alexander arches into him, sliding one hand around to grip the back of his neck, easy and fluid and smiling against his lips and Aaron clutches him as close as he can, gripping him hard by the hair.

“Stay,” Alexander breathes, tilting his head away just enough that Aaron keenly feels the absence of his mouth. He slides his hand under Aaron's shirt, presses his palm flat against his chest. He has never wanted anything more than he wants Alexander right now.

He says nothing-- what is there to say, now?-- and kisses him again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> he takes and he takes and he takes, and he keeps winning anyway...
> 
> they kiss......... at last............ happy new year............ i forgot to say merry christmas even though i updated on christmas haha woops!!!! ;;;;;;;;;;;; i hope yall had happy holidays, thank you for all the christmas well-wishes !!!


	18. nobody needs to know

It's all very surreal.

Early dawn sunlight shines through Burr's windows, and the pale eerie light doesn't help with how surreal this is. Burr can't stand still-- his skin is too warm and everywhere he feels the ghost of Alexander's hands and mouth, and if he stands still he feels too much like he's shaking-- so he paces.

Alexander, painfully at ease and distractingly shirtless, lounges in Burr's desk chair. He's fiddling with his phone, as casual as you please. "Let me know when you're done freaking out," he says, with every indication that he plans on staying right where he is, in Burr's office, until that happens.

He puts his feet up on Burr's desk, on top of a pile of important paperwork. 

Burr tries to take deep breaths.

This feels disastrous. He spent so long desperately avoiding  _ this _ , trying to keep his distance, but now that's all fallen apart. But, strangely, the world has yet to end. The world around him does not crumble. No bolt of lightning strikes him down. Outside, the city continues to move. His phone continues to buzz with Twitter notifications. Alexander keeps writing.

Perhaps, he thinks, this is not as much of a big deal as he's always made it out to be in his head. Perhaps, he thinks, Alexander is right. In a way.  _ Thou shalt not covet _ , says the good book; he was damned the moment he started thinking about it, not the moment he  _ did _ something about it. And feeling guilty won't make it un-happen.

He cannot make this un-happen. It's done. He needs to focus on moving forward.

There are, Burr thinks, two paths forward. He stands at a crossroads. He needs to choose one of these roads, decisively.

Possibility one: he never speaks to Alexander again, never looks at him again, cuts him out of his life entirely and throws his awful non-blooming poinsettia out the window. Remove his eyes from his life. Do whatever it takes to make sure that last night was the last time.

Possibility two:

He glances up at Alexander, who looks up from his phone at precisely the right second to look him square in the eyes. Those eyes. Lined and shadowed from a lifetime of sleeping as little as humanly possible. Deep brown, framed with long dark eyelashes. Captivating. He looks into those eyes and he can't breathe. Alexander is  _ looking _ at him-- not through him, not out of courtesy, not distant or polite. He is, instead, giving him the same intent focus that he gives his work. A single-minded overwhelming fascination. It isn't just interest glittering in his eyes, or expectation-- there's something more intense and unsettling. He feels like the only person in the world, when Alexander looks at him like that; he feels important and acknowledged, but he also feels tremendously helpless.

Alexander smiles crookedly down at him.

This is not the last time.

 

Here's the thing, he reasons: if nobody ever finds out, ever, then it's fine. As long as nobody ever knows, then the only harm done is to his soul which is at this point so far beyond repair it hardly seems to matter what he does. He has not, he decides,  _ actually _ ruined everything. Not yet. If Theo ever finds out, that will definitely ruin everything, but if she doesn't? Everything stays fine. She smiles at him, and he has not hurt her. 

Sure, it's a terrible idea. Not a good thing to be doing. They both know that. There's a thousand and one reasons to  _ not _ do this. Every time Burr is away from Alexander for any amount of time, he thinks about all of the, decides it's over-- then he sees him again, and Alexander makes eye contact, and he can't bring himself to go back to what they were before. 

Because now, when Alexander smiles at him and his chest constricts and he can't breathe or think of anything besides the way his hair falls into his face, he can just close the gap between them and take his face in his hands and kiss him. He can do that, now, and the world keeps turning. It's freeing. For once, for once, he can have everything he wants.

 

They sit in their offices and work through the night sometimes, Alexander wincing occasionally, pausing to rub his wrists through his braces and flex his fingers. Burr falls asleep more often than not, not quite able to keep himself awake the same way Alexander is. Every time, Alexander inevitably wakes him up because he wants to chatter at someone about his ideas.

"I can't possibly actually talk to you about this," Burr tells him once, voice slurred with sleep.

Alexander throws a pencil at him and says, "Just stay awake, that would be enough."

And he keeps talking, rambling about the economy, about the government, stopping halfway through some thoughts to type furiously and then picking up again somewhere else entirely. It's not quite the same as when he was writing speeches for the General, but it has a comfortable familiarity to it.

Working close to him, Burr feels more sharply than ever that he is living history. Alexander is a force of nature. The country will be built off his broken wrists and the knots in his shoulders and the lines under his eyes. He writes like a man possessed-- he never slows down, never takes a break. It's difficult to relax or take time to think when Alexander is in the room, because his urgency overpowers everything around him.

"For God's sake," Burr tells him once, twice, a thousand times, "Take a  _ break. _ "

Alexander always refuses. He says, "I just need to write something down," and keeps writing for another few hours. He writes until he can't any more, because he's too tired or in too much pain, and then he gets upset with himself for being too tired or in too much pain.

So Burr grabs him by the arm and hauls him out of his desk chair, lets him sling his arm across his shoulders, shuts his laptop. He says, "You need to learn to take your time," and Alexander muffles his sarcastic laugh in the crook of Burr's neck.

"No, what I need is to start injecting caffeine straight into my veins instead of wasting time digesting it in coffee form," he says. Still determined to catapult himself into an early grave. Burr sighs and half-carries him to the bus stop. Alexander's weight and warmth pressing into him is pleasant, even if he is jittery and crabby and the summer night makes everything too warm.

"You could have at least let me take my laptop with me. What am I supposed to do at home without my laptop?" he complains.

"Sleep," Burr says dryly, and Alexander groans.

"I don't need to sleep, I need to finish these  _ essays _ ," he insists, but he still falls asleep on Burr's shoulder on the bus, his long fingers intertwined with Burr's.

When Burr gets him through the front door of his house Alexander kisses him slow and sleepy, fingers curling in the fabric of his shirt, and for a little while the urgency and uncertainty and frustration fall away.

* * *

 

**@ThomasJefferson** ✔

Comin hoooome

 

**@ThomasJefferson** ✔

...Aaand I'm off to nyc. LE SIGH (that's French I learned in my travels ;P)

 

**@ThomasJefferson** ✔

Im advised to add that there's nothing wrong with NYC ;P Beautiful city God bless xoxo

 

**@JamesMadison** ✔

Very glad to hear @ThomasJefferson is back in the USA & YES we have a meeting scheduled already.

 

**@ThomasJefferson** ✔

@JamesMadison We do? LOL wut

 

* * *

 

Alexander crashes into his office, practically kicking the door down. "Burr!" he shouts, as though the slammed door wasn't enough to get his attention.

Burr doesn't look up from his laptop, because he knows Alexander wants him to. "Treasury or State?"

"Wh-- oh," Alexander deflates a bit. "Of course you knew. You've stolen my thunder a little bit, now. That's so rude of you."

"Of course I knew," Burr echoes, and glances up to smile at him. "Treasury or State, Alexander?"

"Treasury," Alexander says, starting to cheerfully pick up speed again. "First Treasury Secretary of the United States, Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson's Secretary of State which-- I don't really see what the General sees in him, he's such a  _ prick _ , but I guess there's no accounting for taste."

He adjusts his tie and flops down in one of Burr's chairs, putting his feet up on the coffee table and tugging his hair out of its ponytail. He tips his head back and sighs, now looking annoyed at the ceiling. Probably thinking of another fifteen things about Thomas Jefferson to complain about. 

Burr feels a bitter taste in the back of his throat when he says, "Congratulations, Alexander."

Jealousy-- something he thought he'd put away a long time ago-- rears its ugly head, twisting in his chest. 

 

* * *

 

**@GWashington** ✔

#Inauguration today. History has its eyes on us.

 

**@Reflectordotcom** ✔

Read @GWashington's speech here!  [ http://1.usa.gov/1XtBcMI ](http://1.usa.gov/1XtBcMI) #inauguration

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys! ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; whats uh. whats up. long time. no update. im sorry........ im sorry if you thought the fic was abandoned........... its not..................... im just experiencing many troubles in life and i got super stressed. brain problems! anyway im sorry. i am planning on finishing this fanfiction, eventually. thanks for bearing with me if you are bearing with me. please continue to bear with me? love you.


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